We have developed a babyNENE toolkit which is based on our simple framework that focuses on four qualities – attentive, nurturing, responsive and questioning. We are calling it a pilot toolkit because we hope you will use it and then give us feedback to make it even better.
We are piloting this toolkit and would love your feedback about it so that we can develop it further. Please use this link to access a simple online questionnaire to respond to questions such as:
- Have you any suggestions for how it could be improved?
- Have you used the babyNENE toolkit?
- How long did you use it for?
- What did you like about it?
You can also access the questionnaire here: https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/canterbury/babynemetookkit-0-1
We launched our toolkit at a Froebel Trust online webinar, Being with Babies Outdoors, in March 2026. To find out more about the background of our toolkit, what informed it and how to use it, you can watch a recording of the webinar below:
Why do we need the babyNENE toolkit?
Giving babies opportunities to be outdoors
Many babies don’t have regular opportunities to spend time outdoors. They rely on adults to take them outdoors and there are health and safety concerns. Children are encouraged to be physically active in the outdoors but not in the ways that babies are physically active. The message seems to be if you can’t run and jump and climb, you belong indoors!
Benefits to babies
There is growing evidence that it can be beneficial to babies in many ways to spend time outdoors. For example, it can be beneficial to their learning, to their wellbeing, to their health and to their overall development. At the same time it can benefit the people who look after and care for them.
Benefits to the environment
Babies are capable of learning a caring attitude towards nature from a few months old, as happens in many cultures. If children ‘grow up green’ from a young age, then they may become adults who can look after our world.
Babies Outdoors 