Giving Compass' Take:

• Chalkbeat reports on the trend of outdoor learning programs for preschoolers in the US (based on a Scandinavian model). While the benefits are numerous, there is a concern that communities of color don't have enough access to them.

• Some of the obstacles to expanding the reach of these "forest schools" are regulatory, and nonprofits engaged in early childhood education may want to look into how to collaborate with policymakers in making sure that kids of all backgrounds can join these programs.

• Here's why getting kids outside is so important in general: a chat with Children & Nature network.

A 2 ½-year-old boy named Ben was ankle-deep in a Jefferson County creek when suddenly he lost his footing and plopped onto his bottom in the cold shallow water. The fall didn’t faze him. Neither did his dripping shorts. He got up and kept playing.

About a dozen children frolicked in or near the creek that day — making pretend tea in small metal buckets, building dams with sticks and mud, or inspecting bugs that flitted nearby.

It was a typical day at Worldmind Nature Immersion School, one of a growing number of programs where toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners spend all their time outside — no matter the weather.

“When children look like they’re playing in nature, huge amounts of learning is taking place,” said Erin Kenny, founder of the American Forest Kindergarten Association and the co-founder of a pioneering outdoor preschool program in Washington state.

Established first in Scandinavia, such “forest schools” occupy a steadily expanding niche in the American early-childhood landscape. But even with the movement’s popularity, advocates wonder if it can reach beyond the homogenous slice of families — mostly middle-class and white — it now serves.

“This movement is not going to move forward or it’s going to be stigmatized if we don’t rapidly move the needle from white middle-class to all-inclusive,” said Kenny.

Read the full article about the concern over diversity at forest preschools by Ann Schimke at Chalkbeat.