Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a free digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was such an enjoyable, quick and easy to digest, educational resource to encourage moving learning and literacy into the outdoors. The book is filled with suggestions on how to move literacy outdoors, whether it's to enjoy story and circle time outside, or to have the children follow along in a story walk. The book suggests literature to further enhance the topics, as well as ideas for inspiring activities (such as the story walk). In addition, the authors demonstrate ways children can create their own form of literature outdoors (such as creating their own stories for a nature based story walk). The resource also provides additional ways you can move the learning that is happening within the classroom into the natural world (such as providing space and opportunities for the students to engage in educational topics through literacy trails). I especially liked the section of the book that described what to fill inside a "Literacy to Go" bag, this has inspired me to propose we create a similar resource for our lending library within my work, as well as create a few at home for myself and my child to utilize. There are themes for birds, sidewalks, clouds and more, and what each bag could consist of to bring literature outdoors.

The book inspired many creative ideas for myself and demonstrated just how easy it can be for a classroom to move our learning from inside to outside, and all of the benefits the outdoors provides for the developing minds.

Thank you so much for the advance copy of this book, I highly recommend this resource to all individuals working in programming with children and educational fields.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic copy to read in exchange for an honest review.

This is the book I've been waiting for. It's very up to date; including information for how to get outside with pandemic restrictions. There so many practical ideas, differentiation strategies, and books suggestions in here. It will be my go to book for planning outdoor activities and making connections to literacy.

I really enjoyed the ideas presented in this book for additional ideas for literacy. Our library offers "adventure kits" and story walks, so we are already doing some of the things. I think this could also be helpful in a variety of settings, for librarians, teachers, and/or parents.

Literacy Moves Outdoors: Learning Approaches for Any Environment by Valerie Bang-Jensen (Heinemann, April 2023) gives teachers practical and useful ideas for adding sensory, hands-on literacy lessons outdoors into their regular teaching routines. As a homeschool parent (over the last 11 years) and homeschool co-op teacher, I frequently have advocated for learning methods far outside of lectures and worksheets, using engaging methods that call upon the senses to help interest the students. Although my most recent co-op teaching situations did not allow for taking the teaching outside, I love the ideas in this slim volume, and I’m confident that teachers in various situations will find ways to make these ideas work for them too.


When I say “practical and useful ideas,” I mean that the author provides ideas that put literacy into actual use for a community or school. The ideas provide literary experiences not just for the students in that teacher’s particular class, but also for community members to participate in and enjoy. The five main ideas take class literacy concepts, including cross-curricular ones, to an outside location. One chapter explains and walks you through setting up a story trail, where a picture book or a student-created book is used to lead participants down a nature trail for a more immersive reading experience. A local library did something similar during the COVID years to our great delight. Also discussed are word gardens, spontaneous outdoor learning, writing and designing signs, and creating literacy trails for conceptual or vocabulary learning. Some of these ideas seemed familiar (I think a local school has a word garden?) and I loved that this book walked through tips and tricks for making the ideas work for other educators, including tips on taking the ideas indoors if it is necessary.

Reading Literacy Moves Outdoors has made me eager to find opportunities to incorporate these ideas into my own teaching, and I feel excited for the next group of kids I get to lead in practical, fun, and (YES) useful literacy exploration. Come to think of it, I hadn’t asked to take my classes outdoors before, so it is possible I may have missed such an opportunity before. Now I see just what a delight it can be, and I’ll make sure to incorporate such ideas into planning whenever possible.

My little reader loves being outside so this was a great resource we'll reference for years to come. I love the idea of story walks!

I really enjoyed this book and will definitely be using it as a resource for future projects, as well as recommending this to co-workers! I got a lot of excellent ideas out of it and look forward to implementing them in the future!

Wonderful guide to get you thinking how you can start incorporating the outdoors into your teaching methods in simple and easy ways.

This guide has great, manageable suggestions on how to move teaching outdoors. As an outdoor educator myself, the activities mentioned in this books are already things I have done or heard of, however this guide helped me picture how to bring other sections of learning (i.e. reading and literacy) into nature lessons.

I really enjoyed how bite-sized and manageable each of the suggested activities are. Not only does the other suggest activities and how to link literacy to them, but they go into detail of the logistics involved in getting those activities prepared.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Parents and teachers, remember how we fondly remember that one odd day where our teachers allowed one cold winter day to have our class outside the classroom?

Well, the impact that one day left has much more than the many thousands of days that we all had while we were kids. Yes, we learnt many “bookish” things of course confined to a room all year round seeing the same black board with the same few teachers studying what limited information was given in our textbooks.

However, this new book is giving a very realistic idea of education which would benefit the learner and the educator the best while being there in their learning environment. What’s better than learning while being in the midst of nature?

I do agree with most of the ideas and the concept behind them. I do feel it will teach more with the best of engaging all our senses for both the teacher and the student.

I appreciate the inclusion of real pictures of all the learning objects; the use of signs and symbols; the specific settings and what we can expect.

If you’re a parent or a teacher, do choose this book. It will present you a whole new perspective on teaching and learning.

I wish the presentation of the content was more engaging and appealing.

Thank you, Heinemann Publishing, for the advance reading copy.

This book is full of great ideas for ways to explore literary through hands-on outdoor experiences. Highly recommended for parents and educators. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

An important topic - glad to see such a well written and illustrated book on HOW TO. As a mom with a child struggling with literacy due to some learning issues, I am thinking about homeschooling next year in a very hands-on way.

- Outdoors is for every learner
- Bringing the outside in
- Literacy to go
- Zero prep/mindful planning
- StoryWalks
- Word Gardens
- Using interpretive signs as a visual
- Sensory trails to engage the senses
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Overall, a great book for homeschool beginners, educators and any one curious about literacy. Very informative and approachable with additional resources given.

I really loved the innovative ideas about integrating learning with wandering around outside. Children today need fresh air; Michelle Obama was a big proponent of the Let's Move! campaign. We can reconnect with the earth and also use the time to teach kids.

Children’s literacy is something about which I am passionate. I firmly believe that all kids should be able to read and enjoy books, menus, street signs…all the things that can be read. It is essential to do everything possible to make this happen if a child is to have a bright future.

This book’s author clearly knows this and also offers many projects for many places in which to use words and hands on, exploratory learning. With chapters titled Story Walks, Word Gardens, Literacy Trails, and Make it Happen (among others), there is much from which to choose.

This title celebrates learning and reinforcing literacy skills while engaging with the world outside. What a simple but brilliant idea. It could involve something as simple as an outdoor story time or a hunt for something. It could be enrichment in the woods, a garden or a school’s playground. Children (and their teachers) will benefit from being outdoors and will even concentrate better once they are back inside.

This is a book to help teachers plan what to do with their students using this model. As the author points out it can be good to try just one thing. There is no shortage of ideas here to get teachers started.

This book is a good resource for open minded educators. I hope that schools will consider its ideas.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Heinemann Publishing for this title. All opinions are my own.