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Guidecraft Partners with Reforestation Nonprofit One Tree Planted
We care deeply about the planet and contributing to creating a better, healthier world for children and their families. As a company that strives to...
Learning with Nature: Finding Creative Inspiration
Learning with nature means not just learning in or about nature, but learning in an environment where the natural world becomes another teacher. Good teachers of course help their students learn facts and ways...
The Impact of Natural Elements on Early Learning Spaces: A Global Perspective
Join EdWeb.net’s Webinar on Monday, May 21, from 3-4pm EST as our very own President, Gary Bilezikian, takes us on a global tour of Early Childhood Education...
How to Make Outdoor Play Possible All Year Long
It is so important that children get outside to play. When children step outdoors their senses activate and they experience the world in a heightened...
What is play exactly? Why do we play? Why do children play? Why do animals play? When you see dogs playfully roughhousing or dolphins joyously...
Outdoor Preschool During a Pandemic: Creating an Urban Forest School
So there we were last spring: in the middle of a global pandemic. School, childcare, everything, shutdown! Then all summer we wondered: Yes, school? No,...
Ok, I admit it—it’s difficult for me when my kids go back to school in the fall. I’m one of those adults who has a...
It was the most healing thing I’d seen during this whole COVID time: children playing together—finally. After how long? Too long. My two sons, 8 and...
Learning with Nature: The Science of Mud
Play, especially messy play, is often under appreciated in children’s learning. This is particularly true when it comes to playing with mud. Adults focus on the...
Learning with Nature: Animals and Empathy
“Look a worm. We should make it a home!” If you’ve spent any time with young children, you’ve likely heard a phrase similar to this...
Learning with Nature: Math of Plants
Bursts of sunflowers, spirals of a cucumber tendrils, different leaf shapes of the sassafras tree, and the large number of acorns during an oak mast...
Learning with Nature: Moments of Serendipity
The memory of my grandmother’s voice and joy as she declared, “Serendipity!” came flooding back to me last week. I was spending the day with...
Learning with Nature: The Power of Silence
The world is so noisy! There are dings of email alerts, cars, air conditioners running, lawnmowers, garbage trucks—the list goes on. Metaphorically we’re also surrounded...
Learning with Nature: Language and Literacy in Context
“But how will they learn to read and write outside?” I often hear this question from parents considering a nature-based preschool. Honestly, the answer is...
Learning with Nature: Awaking a Sense of Wonder
Exploring nature is a surefire way to spark young children’s learning. Children inherently want to learn which is why they’re constantly asking questions. They’re full...
How to Bring Back Your Life’s Rhythms: Establishing Routines
image © shutterstock_1089847160 There’s no denying it—we are living in a new normal with families now living, working, and learning all together under one roof....
In a recent edWebinar presentation sponsored by Kaplan Early Learning Company, Dr. Sandra Duncan, author, educator and classroom design expert, and Lauren Magee, licensed architect and Director of...
How to Bring Back Your Life’s Rhythms: Importance of Hideaways for Kids
For the past few months, the common thread of COVID-19 has changed all our lives. Through this change, we’ve discovered many things about our children,...
How to Bring Back Your Life’s Rhythms: Balancing Screen Time with Art Time
Increased screen time can have a great - and potentially detrimental - impact on young children's social, emotional and cognitive growth. Young children learn best...
How to Bring Back Your Life’s Rhythms: Keeping Hands Busy
The world’s axis is tilted 23.5 degrees from the plane of its orbit around the sun and hasn’t changed significantly in the last 40,000 years....
Heart-Centered Environmental Design: A Fresh Perspective
Author, designer and teacher, Sandra Duncan, EdD, and the president of Guidecraft, Gary Bilezikian, were honored to collaborate and contribute to the 250th issue of Exchange...
Creating Nature-based Classrooms Webinar – Presented by Sandra Duncan and Jody Martin
When you think of the aesthetics of an early education classroom, what do you see? Brightly colored plastic toys. Shelves stacked high with lesson materials...
How to Design Inspiring Early Learning Spaces
When most people talk about designing an early childhood education program, they mean the curriculum, the funding, or the program. Not Dr. Sandra Duncan. When...
What Does Home Learning Look Like for Us?
I’m a mom. I’m an architect. I’m a teacher. Those roles have each taken precedence in my life in differing ways in the past. Sometimes...
Lauren Magee — mother of a 3-year-old, 7-year-old and 9-year-old, architect, and educator — has recently found herself in a situation familiar to parents around the world,...
Welcome to Lauren’s Learning Lab
Lauren Magee — architect, educator, and mother of a 3, 7 and 9-year-old — has recently found herself in a situation familiar to parents around the world, with...
The Kids Help Design Their Home Learning Space – Lauren’s Learning Lab
In this episode, Lauren Magee, an architect, teacher and mom, shares her process of engaging her 3-year-old, 7-year-old, and 9-year-old children in the design of...
10 Important Tips for Creating a Safer Learning Space at Home – Lauren’s Learning Lab
In this episode of Lauren’s Learning Lab, architect, teacher and mom, Lauren Magee, shows other parents how to keep their children safe while distance learning....
Nooks with Books and Other Homeschool Spaces – Lauren’s Learning Lab
In this episode of Lauren’s Learning Lab, mom, architect and teacher, Lauren Magee, breaks down the process of designing home-learning environment into creative, bite-sized tips...
Learning While Making Memories in the Kitchen – Lauren’s Learning Lab
From an educational standpoint, the kitchen serves as a place for children to learn math and language skills in home learning environments. In this episode...
Nooks with Books and Other Homeschool Spaces – Lauren’s Learning Lab, Featuring Dr. Sandra Duncan
In this episode, Lauren Magee is joined by author, educator and early childhood expert, Dr. Sandra Duncan, who shares bite-sized ideas on how you can design small or...
Crazy Costumes = Developing Brains – Lauren’s Learning Lab
In this episode of Lauren’s Learning Lab, mom, architect and teacher, Lauren Magee shares the benefits of pretend play for her 3-year-old, 7-year-old, and 9-year-old. From sharing...
Blocks: Play with Toys the Natural Way – Lauren’s Learning Lab, Featuring Dr. Carla Horwitz
In this episode of Lauren’s Learning Lab, mom, architect and teacher, Lauren Magee is joined by Carla Horwitz MS, Dip. Ed, Ed. D and Child Study Center...
How Kids Learn Using Their Senses – Lauren’s Learning Lab
In this episode of Lauren’s Learning Lab, Lauren Magee shares how important sensory play is for young children in home-based learning environments. Lauren’s 3-year-old, 7-year-old and 9-year-old...
Blocks: Play with Toys the Natural Way, Part 2 – Lauren’s Learning Lab, Featuring Dr. Carla Horwitz
In this episode, mom, architect and teacher, Lauren Magee, continues her conversation with Yale University’s Dr. Carla Horwitz about Unit Blocks and what makes them...
Lauren’s Learning Lab – Summer Series: Back to Nature
Going outdoors brightens everyone’s mood, especially the moods of Lauren Magee’s 3 young children. This summer, Lauren’s Learning Lab heads outside for a much needed reset. Follow Lauren and...
How to Design the Best Playroom for Kids
The Ultimate Back-to-School Checklist: 13 Classroom Essentials You Need This Year
After a summer of fun, teachers, students, and homeschooling parents are gearing up for a new school year. Getting ready to go back to school...
7 Ways to Create Invitations to Play through a Child’s Environment
“Want to play?” These are magical words to children. An invitation to play is welcoming, inclusive, and suggests that fun is about to happen. Children learn through play,...
Mud Play = The Perfect Screen Break – Lauren’s Learning Lab Featuring Rusty Keeler
In this episode of Lauren’s Learning Lab, mom, architect and teacher, Lauren Magee is joined by author, educator and natural playscape designer, Rusty Keeler. Together, they work to design...
Daily Routines While Distance Learning – Lauren’s Learning Lab
In this episode of Lauren’s Learning Lab, Lauren Magee shares how she creates daily routines and a schedule that her children can look forward to to avoid...
