Background: The forest school and nature kindergarten approach to early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been established for well over 50 years in the United Kingdom and across parts of Europe including Scandinavia. One example where the nature kindergarten approach has recently taken a foothold is the Australian 'bush kinder'. Bush…

The aim of the article is to analyse aesthetic encounters in Danish early childhood and care (ECEC) centres and create knowledge of and a language for aesthetics as sensitive encounters and vibrant matters between humans and the world. The article thus challenges traditional assumptions about and understandings of aesthetics as simply impression,…

Bush kindergartens are a new practice in the Australian early childhood learning context and one that is rapidly becoming part of the kindergarten experience. Children leaving the confines of the bounded space of a kindergarten has been practised through excursions to outdoor places like zoos but the notion of conducting regular, ongoing…

Computers, laptops, interactive whiteboards, and iPads make regular appearances in our daily lessons, but are they being used to their fullest potential? In an effort to use technology with students in a meaningful way, the authors incorporated a free app and online graphing resource into a second-grade lesson on the characteristics of a lake…

We present a reconceptualized framework for opportunity to learn (OTL) in school mathematics that builds on previous conceptualizations of OTL and includes features related to both quantity (i.e., time) and quality. Our framework draws on existing literature and on our own observational research of mathematics teaching practices. Through the…

This paper examines how literacy is defined and enacted by teachers in early childhood programmes pointing to the differing ways views of early literacy impact practice. It is argued here that early literacy development during the years before school is dependent on children's experiences of having literacy activities modelled around them and the…

Science education research has recommended cooperative inquiry based science in the primary science context for more than two decades but after more than 20 years, student achievement in science has not substantially improved. This study, through direct observation and analysis, investigated content-related student interactions in an authentic…