DIEEC’s new Let’s GROW Outside! initiative teaches professionals about the possibilities provided through outdoor gardening with young children and provides a grant-funded opportunity to make your own edible garden come to life.

During this extended professional development experience, participants will learn about the benefits of connecting children and gardening, gain knowledge and skills needed to develop and sustain a garden, understand how to use a supplemental gardening curriculum, and plan for age-appropriate garden activities with children. As part of this experience, your program will receive materials and tools needed for gardening.

Let’s GROW Outside! will kick off in late November and run through the spring of 2025.

Let’s Go Outside

In spring of 2021, the DIEEC launched a brand new professional learning experience that immersed early childhood professionals in the benefits of outdoor classroom environments. Entitled “Let’s Go Outside”, this experience not only taught professionals about the possibilities provided through outdoor learning, it also led to grant funding opportunities for them to create classrooms of their own. In total, thirteen programs from across Delaware received funding to make their outdoor classroom visions come to life.

Since our pilot, 82 programs participated reaching a total of 5,115 children, in the Let’s Go Outside initiative! We are looking forward to additional cohorts in the future.

Learn more about Let’s Go Outside

Below, you’ll learn about the experiences of two of them: the little school at Kids Cottage in Dover and The Kids Zone Family Child Care in Middletown.

little school at Kids Cottage (Dover)

  • Outdoor setting with benches
  • Outdoor playground with basketball hoop
  • Outdoor playground with play house feature

Before

  • Outdoor playground with garden area
  • Outdoor playgound with wood stumps for climbing or sitting
  • Outdoor raised garden bed
  • Outdoor playground table
  • Outdoor garden planter
  • Outdoor playground swingset
  • Outdoor playground with two raised garden beds
  • Outdoor playground with raised garden beds and flower pots

After

Created in the corner of the outside turf area, the little school’s outdoor classroom includes a stump circle, loose parts area, water pumping station, and multiple garden boxes. All pictured above, these elements come together to make a safe space where children have the freedom to solve problems, expand their imaginations, and learn on their own terms.

The new use of this space is life-changing… – Lisa Ratliff, Little School co-owner and director

The Kids Zone Family Child Care & Preschool (Middletown)

  • Playground with swimming pool and some play equipment
  • Empty area of a playground
  • Deck looking out onto an empty play area

Before

  • Two children recording nature observations in a new outside classroom.
  • Child sitting on a log writing observations about a lesson in an outdoor classroom.
  • Child prepares dirt for planting in an outdoor classroom.
  • Students use a wheelbarrow to transport soil in an outdoor classroom.
  • Child works at a planting station in an outdoor classroom.
  • Panaramic view of a new outdoor classroom.
  • Planting station in an outdoor classroom.

After

What was once the backyard of program owner/teacher Clarise Brooks is now the exciting and welcoming outdoor classroom for the children at The Kids Zone Family Child Care. From classwork time in the stump circle to collaborative learning in the mud and dirt kitchen, the children enjoy every moment they get in their outdoor classroom.

Allows my kids to try different things and become more comfortable with the unknown.
– Clarise Brooks, The Kids Zone owner and director