This empirical study analyses the qualitatively different ways in which teachers approach children's learning in and about nature. The empirical data consists of video observations of children and teachers communicating with one another around natural phenomena found during excursions into a forest. Variation theory is presented as a framework for analysing the opportunities teachers provide for children's learning. The study identifies three qualitatively different ways in which teachers communicate with children: one based on the principle of opening up dimensions of variation, the second building on presumed shared previous experience as a resource for making sense of a novel observation and the third involving children through using a make-believe playful approach. The implications of these three different approaches for children's learning are discussed. (author abstract)