7.1 Definition of the area

Gardens, outdoor space and nature are always there, every time the same, though every time also different.

Apparently stable, but in fact these spaces are in constant transformation. The challenge is to observe, stop and let oneself be involved every day. This happens only if any architectural or natural element outside can be reached, used, acted directly by the children, in complete autonomy. Every outdoor educational context can turn into an atelier, a place which is always present and accessible, able to offer children different daily meeting opportunities with more materials, more languages, more ideas, and more points of view.

This is the space where the creative process of every single child and the children group is enhanced and amplified, through different and multiple experiences stimulating motor, cognitive, communicative, relational, and sensorial learning.

In the outdoor atelier kids have the chance to deepen the investigation they began indoor, develop creativity and imagination using different artistic forms of expression, plan and carry on scientific experiments. In the outdoor atelier kids find baskets made out of natural material (e.g. pines, branches, leaves, blackboards, chalks etc.), boxes and ropes. This area needs to be protected from sun rays, rain and wind, in order to extend the outdoor season and maximize children's opportunities for learning.

7.2 Learning Objectives

1. TO DEVELOP CREATIVITY:
   Promotion of critical and divergent thinking through logic, problem solving and creation of new ideas.
2. LEARNING ABOUT EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGES (FINE MOTORICS):
   Ability to express oneself using different languages, with a multisensory ap-proach that gives a more complex idea of reality back to the kids.
3. EXPERIMENTATION:
   research on materials with a scientific approach (tries & mistakes), collecting data, making and testing hypothesis, generating new ideas and thoughts about the world.
4. CREATION:
   Ability to create something new, constructing, interpreting, re-thinking, and re-reading the reality Explore nature through our five senses, sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Practice sorting impressions and have the peace of mind to process experiences
5. TO LEARN ABOUT TEXTURE AND MATERIALS:
   To examine materials, their characteristics, the possible uses and the inputs they give, widening the learning opportunities

7.3 Curriculum References

Italy

• File: http://www.indicazioninazionali.it/2018/08/26/indicazioni-2012

• Reference: p.26

• Content: Children express thoughts and emotions with imagination and creativity: art guides this propensity, educating to the pleasure of beauty and aesthetic feeling. The exploration of the available materials allows you to live the first artistic experiences, which are able to stimulate creativity and infect other learning. Languages must be discovered and educated so that they develop in children the sense of beauty, the knowledge of themselves, of others and reality.

Cyprus

• File: https://drive.google.com/open?id=14OtOhNRGRDXNMIHe6HBrdl2o9QyWmuMS

• Reference: p.28

  Area of development: Mental empowerment

  Keystone 1: Creativity / creative thinking - Aims: - Children to use old things in a new manner; - Children to develop new ideas and opinions, as well as recreate and re-use old things

• Content:

  Keystone 1: page 64

  Some indicative learning objectives are the following:

  • The child to express his/her thoughts in multiple ways
  • The child to use old things in a new way
  • The child to create new ideas/opinions/objects.

  Some indicative practices are the following:

  1. Provision of a variety of materials for children to express their feelings and communicate (e.g. glue, cloth)
  2. Give children the opportunity of using a toy in various ways (e.g. hat)
  3. Give children old dolls to make changes on them and use them while playing
  4. Involvement in the production of numerous musical sounds and movements.

Latvia

• File: http://likumi.lv/ta/id/303371-noteikumi-par-valsts-pirmsskolas-izglitibas-vadlinijam-un-pirmsskolas-izglitibas-programmu-paraugiem

• Reference:
  Keystone 3.3, page 1
  Keystone 3.4, page 1 - Tasks of implementing pre-school education content
  Keystone 9.2, page 2 - In pre-school education, a child shall acquire the following transversal skills
  Keystone 10.2, page 3
  Keystone 10.6, page 3 -At the end of pre-school education, the child has acquired the following basics of skills, which include values and virtues, transversal skills and knowledge, understanding and basic skills.

• Content: To develop the child's social and emotional skills, which include self-awareness, emotions, thoughts and behaviours, the ability to understand others and develop positive relationships

Sweden

• File: https://www.skolverket.se/publikationsserier/styrdokument/2019/curriculum-for-the-preschool-lpfo-18?id=4049

• Reference: p.14, p.15

• Content:

  The preschool should provide each child with the conditions to develop:

  p.14

  • their identity and feel security in it, and awareness of the right to physical and personal integrity.
  • independence and trust in their own ability.
  • curiosity, creativity and desire to play and learn,
  • an ability to function individually and in a group, cooperate, manage conflicts, and understand rights and obligations, and to assume responsibility for common rules
  • an ability to listen to and reflect on other people's perceptions, and to reflect and express their own beliefs.
  • imagination and imagination.

  P.15

  • motor skills, coordination, and body perception, and understanding how important caring for their health and well-being
  • an ability to use and understand concepts, see correlations and discover new ways of understanding the world around them.
  • an ability to create and ability to express and communicate occurrences, thoughts and experiences in different forms of expression such as image, form, drama, movement, singing, music and dance;
  • interest in stories, pictures and texts in different media, both digital and other, and their ability to use, interpret, question and discuss about them,
  • a nuanced spoken language and vocabulary as well as the ability to play with words, relate things, express thoughts, ask questions, put forward arguments and communicate with others in different contexts and for different purposes.
  • an interest in written language and understanding of symbols and how they are used to convey messages
  • their cultural identity and knowledge of and interest in different cultures, and an understanding of the value of living in a society characterized by diversity, as well as an interest in local cultural.
  • both the Swedish language and the national minority language, if the child belongs to a national minority.
  • both the Swedish language and its mother tongue, if the child has a different mother tongue than Swedish,
  • Swedish sign language, if the child has impaired hearing, is deaf or needs sign language for other reasons
  • an ability to use mathematics to investigate, reflect on and try out different solutions to their problem raised by themselves and others.
  • understanding of space, time and form, and basic properties of s4ets, patterns, quantities, order, numbers, measurement and change, and reason to mathematically about this,
  • an ability to discern, express, investigate and use mathematical concepts and their interrelationships.
  • understanding of relationships in nature and different cycles in nature and how people, nature and society affect each other.
  • an understanding of how different choices people make in everyday life can contribute to sustainable development
  • an understanding of natural sciences, knowledge of plants and animals, and simple chemical process and physical phenomena.
  • an ability to explore, describe with different forms of expression, ask questions and discuss science and technology
  • an ability to discover and explore technology in everyday life.
  • an ability to build, create and construct with the help of different techniques, materials, and tools