Today Mary is talking to Professor Jan White.
Jan is a leading thinker and writer on outdoor play and advocate for nature-rich outdoor provision for services for children from birth to seven. She works as an early childhood consultant across the UK, Ireland and internationally

Jan has over thirty-eight years’ experience in education and has developed a deep commitment to the consistently powerful effect of the outdoors on young children. With a childhood love of rocks and soil, leading to a degree in Soil Science, a masters in Ecology and post-graduate teaching certificate in Science and Outdoor Education, she realises that she has always been, at heart, a committed mudologist!

Jan co-authored the globally influential booklet Making a Mud Kitchen (available in 12 languages) and is author of Playing and Learning Outdoors, now in its 3rd edition. She is honorary Professor of Practice with the University of Wales Trinity St David, and founder/co-director of Early Childhood Outdoors, the national organisation for play, learning and wellbeing outdoors.



Making a Mud Kitchen can be downloaded as a free PDF from Muddy Faces’ Outdoor Hub at https://muddyfaces.co.uk/outdoor-hub/mud/mud-kitchen-book

Sign up for the weekly ECO blog at https://www.earlychildhoodoutdoors.org/blog/

Recommended books:
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell
Tarqa the Otter by Henry Williamson
Sharing Nature with Children by Joseph Bharat Cornell
Grandfather Twilight by Barbra Berger
Frederick by Leo Lionni
Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel
Ears and the Secret Song by Meryl Dolley
Biophilia by E.O. Wilson
The Goodness of Rain by Ann Pelo
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Quotation by Kahlil Gibran:
“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair”


Contact Jan at
www.earlychildhoodoutdoors.org

Contact Mary at
mary@burrennaturesanctuary.ie

Check out the Burren Nature Sanctuary, the home of Nature Magic at
www.burrennaturesanctuary.ie

Buy the book
Nature Magic- How you can engage everyone with biodiversity at

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nature-Magic-Engage-Everyone-Biodiversity/dp/1838105336