🌿 Preschool the Finnish Way #9: The Whole Child in Focus

Why the Finnish Approach Works and How You Can Bring It Into Your Classroom

Across this 9-part series, we have walked through the heart of Finnish early childhood education: play, rhythm, calm, trust, emotional safety, outdoor learning, and the teacher as a facilitator. Today, as we close the series, we return to the foundation beneath it all:

In Finnish preschool education, the whole child is always the center.

Not the curriculum. Not the schedule. Not the assessment. The child.

But what does “whole child” actually mean in practice, beyond a slogan or a poster on a staff room wall?

This final post helps you see how the pieces fit together and offers a deeper look at why this model works and how you can begin applying it in your own context.

🌱 What the Whole-Child Approach Looks Like in Finland

Finland’s National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) makes it clear:

The aim is to support the child’s holistic development, well-being, and learning through play and everyday activities.

This is not a philosophy; it is a framework that guides every environment, interaction, and routine.

Finnish preschool honors four developmental domains, not separately but through integrated practice:

1. Emotional Development

Calm, co-regulated environments allow children to feel safe enough to learn. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory confirms this: when a child’s nervous system feels secure, curiosity and social engagement rise.

2. Social Development

Play, cooperation, group problem-solving, and negotiated conflict help shape empathy and fairness. Finland sees these as learning, not disruptions.

3. Physical Development

Movement is essential, not optional. Outdoor play strengthens the brain’s executive functions, balance, resilience, and confidence. Outdoor-learning research consistently shows reduced stress and improved focus.

4. Cognitive Development

Learning emerges naturally from play, exploration, and meaningful experiences. Children build early literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving not through drills but through real-life engagement.

🌿 The Power of Integration: Why This System Works

Many early childhood systems treat these four areas as separate “targets” or subjects. Finland integrates them.

Here’s a simple example:

When children build a fort outdoors, they are:

• negotiating roles (social)

• regulating emotions when frustrated (emotional)

• lifting, digging, carrying materials (physical)

• planning, measuring, problem-solving (cognitive)

One experience activates the whole child.

This is why Finnish preschool education is slow, unhurried, and intentionally spacious:

Children need time to go deep. Children need time to become.

🍃 The Daily Rhythm: A Quiet Engine of Stability

In Video #8, we explored calm and predictability. In this blog, we expand on why rhythm matters for the whole child.

Finnish preschools use rhythm not rigid scheduling to reduce anxiety and help children feel emotionally anchored.

A stable rhythm:

• lowers cognitive load

• supports transitions

• protects attention

• nurtures emotional regulation

• builds independence

A child can only engage as a whole person when their nervous system is not in survival mode.

Rhythm = safety. Safety = learning.

🌲 Nature as the Third Teacher

No whole-child approach is complete without nature. In Finland, outdoor learning is not a break, it is a primary learning environment.

Research shows that nature:

• reduces cortisol (stress)

• improves concentration

• strengthens immune systems

• builds resilience

• deepens emotional stability

  
  

Outdoor learning significantly improves students’ ability to regulate attention and stress.

When we bring nature into education, we reconnect children to the environment that evolution designed their brains for.

🌱 The Teacher’s Role: Facilitator, Not Director

In Finnish preschool learning, the teacher:

• observes

• listens

• creates invitations to explore

• extends learning without interrupting it

• protects the child’s agency

• cultivates belonging

The teacher steps back not because they are uninvolved, but because:

Children must have room to think, choose, negotiate, and try.

This shift alone transforms classrooms.

🌿 Putting It All Together: What You Can Try Tomorrow

The whole-child approach is powerful but it doesn’t require a Finnish school to begin implementing.

Here are five simple ways to bring this into your practice immediately:

1. Replace one rush with one unhurried moment.

Slow down a transition. Protect it from being squeezed.

2. Add one meaningful play invitation each week.

Loose parts, open-ended materials, nature objects.

3. Move one activity outdoors.

Snack, circle time, story time, inquiry.

4. Observe before you intervene.

Let children lead. Your insight grows when you step back.

5. Strengthen one rhythm anchor.

A predictable morning greeting. A closing ritual. A calm start after lunch.

Small steps build big change.

🌼 A Final Reflection

As we close the Preschool the Finnish Way series, one truth rises above the rest:

Children grow best when adults slow down.

Children thrive when environments breathe. Children learn when they feel safe.

And you, as the teacher, create the conditions for that safety, that joy, that calm, and that whole-child growth.

Thank you for walking this journey.Your willingness to rethink and re-imagine early childhood education is already transforming lives.

Watch the indepth discussion on YouTube: The Courage to Teach Differently

📚 References

• Finnish National Agency for Education (ECEC Curriculum Framework, 2022).

• Porges, S. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation.

• https://learningplaygrounds.com/wp-content/uploads/Center-on-the-Developing-Child-at-Harvard-University-Executive-Function-and-Self-Regulation.pdf

• Deci, E., & Ryan, R. (2000). Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being.