Members of the Mindstretchers team are spreading their educational consultancy to Iceland. Claire Warden was invited to speak at the EECERA research conference in Reykjavik and members of her team were able to attend the conference. Whilst in Iceland Claire and other members of the Mindstretchers team, Kate Hookham and Niki Buchan, made some site visits to local early years centres to look at teaching and learning. The children in Iceland do not enter more formal education until 6 years old and still have a very high literacy rate as adults.

In the centres visited children of all ages used simple wooden building blocks to build very intricate structures. Sheep bones are one of the traditional Icelandic toys and in most centres these were available as well as other natural Icelandic resources. The children in all the centres visited spend a large part of their day outdoors where they socialise with children of all ages. The black Volcanic sand is available in all outdoor areas and offers a great natural sand experience. All the centres encourage recycling, composting and the majority had their own vegetable gardens where children are actively involved in planting and caring for the plants. Risk-taking is part of the acceptable daily play and children have access to climbing rocks, trees as well as being allowed to plan, design and construct their own dens using hammers and nails.

One of the photographs shows Claire Warden working with the children sorting volcanic rock that is readily available from the local Lava fields. Other images show children building large structures with the wooden blocks, climbing a tree and proudly sitting on a wooden house structure. Children are also shown playing with sheep jaw bones and tending the vegetables in their garden