Planning an outstanding outdoor area for your nursery
Give your children the freedom to explore a feature-packed fresh-air space and watch them flourish, says Caroline Johnson…
Developing an inspiring outdoor learning environment should be a goal for every early years setting.
A high-quality space to play in the fresh air enables children to learn about the world around them independently by accessing the natural world, alongside the resources you provide, and can have a positive impact on wellbeing and development.
But how do you go about creating an effective learning environment outside?
Why outdoor play matters
Many things we know as adults can’t be taught in a traditional sense; instead the knowledge and skills we need are acquired through play – think physical development, emotional development, resilience, dexterity, creativity, imagination, and much more.
As early years practitioners our job is to support children’s play with minimal interference, allowing them to be the agents of their own discovery of the world.
As part of this we must recognise the significance of child-initiated play, which is when children really demonstrate their own interests and make choices about what they want to do.
An outdoor environment, with all its freedom and breadth, is the ideal venue for child-initiated play.
Children are released from the direction of adults; they are able to make their own decisions and choices about where they want to play and the resources they engage with as they explore in a world where there are no pre-planned outcomes and nothing is definite.
The aptly named ‘great outdoors’ can be completely flexible and open to a child’s imagination.
This is because the outdoor environment is not prescriptive. It encourages children to be more inquisitive and engaged, putting them in the mindset to learn.
Most of our indoor environments are fixed and unchanging – you might leave an indoor environment and return to it 10 years later to find it essentially unaltered.
Comparatively, outdoor environments are always changing, with the seasons and the weather if nothing else, provoking questions and inviting further investigation from children.
A range of different play styles, children’s schemas and peer group interactions can flourish in a natural environment: children can shout and move around without restriction, while the common visual distractions found indoors – including lighting and wall displays – are absent outdoors.
This is particularly beneficial for children who may be on the autistic spectrum or who are sensitive to stimulation which may trigger stress, anxiety or challenges and could influence their behaviour and impact on their learning.
Plan your space
Establishing an effective outdoor learning environment that allows for challenging and inspiring outdoor play involves creating high-quality, rich play landscapes.
Some key principles to bear in mind when looking at your own space is the need for lots of social spaces and areas of interest with an easy flow between them. Children should be able to move between these areas and become engrossed in each without facing barriers.
Different ways of getting from place to place easily are fascinating for children, who tend to be interested by difference (try digging a hole in a flat piece of grass or creating a mound, and you’ll see what I mean).
There should be plenty of opportunity for this in your outdoor space. Children must be able to adjust, combine, reorder, reorganise, problem solve and collaborate.
The success of your outdoor environment will depend on your chosen resources and the layout of the continuous provision.
The most important aspect of the play environment is its changeability and flexibility.
While they look impressive, Children don’t need a play ship, an aeroplane or a spaceship to climb inside; they just need a variety of props, for example, moving parts, crates, tyres, wheels, wooden planks, pulleys, rope, sand, water, buckets, stones, rocks and utensils.
Of course, the opportunity to throw in the odd random item occasionally is there – perhaps dinosaur fossils hidden in the sand, lumps of gold nuggets dotted around, small and large items of different textures and materials, trugs to collect and carry, floaty scarves to create shades, patterns and shapes, etc.
If you create these prompts, children will naturally explore them.
A stimulating outdoor learning environment should also give children access to activities like den building and the opportunity to transform and transport creatively.
Offer a range of open-ended resources to help support children create their own areas. Readily available messy resources will be mixed together enthusiastically – and don’t forget to provide real-life kitchen tools so children are able to recreate experiences from home.
Outdoor areas are much easier to clean than inside, allowing the children to get as messy as they like trying out different ways of combining and handling the materials.
Providing opportunities to paint on walls and floors using water and paint brushes will encourage children to make marks whilst practising their fine motor skills.
Mark-making materials like paper, blackboards, whiteboards, clipboards, pens, chalks, water spray paint, pencils, charcoal, and a choice of large- and small-scale materials enable children to express themselves and consolidate their play.
The freedom of actually ‘doing’ will empower children to practise and give them the confidence to try new things – an attribute they will retain throughout their lives.
Natural resources
When creating a stimulating outdoor environment it helps to provide varied natural resources. Here are some areas and resources to consider including:
Investigation areas Include resources and tools such as magnifiers that will allow children to explore natural habitats and uncover small creatures, learning about living things in the environment and their life cycles; fossils, magnets, telescopes are all useful too.
Digging areas A great way to support children’s natural curiosity. Fill containers with leaves, twigs, mud, different coloured sand, water, pebbles or wood, and watch what happens.
Growing areas Extend children’s understanding of the world by offering opportunities to plant, water and grow a variety of flowers or vegetables. Take it further by exploring their texture, smell, colour and shape, then peel, cut and eat them.
Loose parts Source small logs, wooden discs, tyres, wheels, cogs, cotton reels, string, rope, buckets, potato mashers, whisks, wooden spoons, crates, wooden planks, pegs… The list is endless. Children are fascinated by everyday objects and will find many imaginative ways to include them in their games.
A word about risk
For some early years practitioners and parents, the risks involved in outdoor play can be a concern.
Managing Risk in Play and Leisure, produced in 2012, was a result of a collaboration between the Play Safety Forum and the Health and Safety executive to assess the issues. It’s a useful guide for managers and practitioners when developing challenging outdoor play in their settings.
Closing thoughts
The benefits of an outdoor learning are almost endless – it can do wonders for social and physical development alike, and in turn boosts vital cognitive skills. So there’s no reason not to give you space the attention it deserves.
Six points to remember
- Create outside areas around the children – think about those who will be using the space; what interests them?
- Look for engaging everyday resources to offer.
- Allow children to transport resources to all areas, and make it as easy as possible.
- Utilise natural resources to prompt children’s curiosity and offer them a challenge.
- Be prepared to be flexible and embrace change.
- Be spontaneous – use what’s going on in the environment to promote learning.
Caroline Johnson is managing director and founder of Stables Daycare.
