The importance of child-led play in a natural space
By Kim Hudson
Compare a stick and a car and with a good imagination you will soon realise the amazing number of play and learning opportunities a stick can offer!
In an early year’s setting play and imagination can be limited by the resources provided. This can lead to a misconception of a child’s interest because the things they are truly interested in are not available to them. Place them in an outdoor natural environment and suddenly the possibilities are endless – a fallen tree becomes a train, a table for a giant’s banquet; a hole in a tree becomes a way to spot pirates stealing treasure or a target to throw stones through; cones and conkers soon come alive with googly eyes or a marker pen and join the adventures of their stickperson.
By allowing open-ended play in a natural space we support the development of not only the child’s imagination and creativity but also their physical and mental well-being. With childhood obesity on the rise, parents having greater demands on their time and an increasing technological lifestyle, early years settings play an essential role in ensuring that children connect with their environment and develop a healthy well-being. Exploring a natural environment, balancing on logs, dancing with rhythm sticks helps to combat obesity without children realising they are exercising, and gives real-world learning opportunities to problem solve, work collaboratively and understand the world around them. Sitting quietly listening to sounds or hunting for wildlife connects them to nature and their environment, and promotes positive mental well-being.
For 20 years I have worked outdoors with children of all ages, but it is the early informative years that fascinate me the most. Many of my friends have under 5 year olds and when walking with them outdoors they are astounded at how I ‘entertain’ their children – helping them create a stickperson, finding objects for instruments, sending them on scavenger hunts to encourage them to walk further. Despite being outdoorsy people themselves, many comment that they lack the confidence to let their children play independently yet don’t know what to do with them. This is the reason I wrote the Woodland Explorer pack. A little cotton bag with 30 weather resistant cards inside offering 27 activities to inspire play in a woodland setting. Some activities you will have heard of before like ‘Making a Stickperson’ but there are so many ways to develop these ideas further with a little more imagination.
It was amazing as I wrote the cards to consider all the learning potentials of each activity. Take for example the humble hole in the tree mentioned above. Simply looking for holes develops observational skills and communication. Using the hole to frame an area focuses their view helping them see the smaller things in the natural world which we often fail to appreciate. By describing what they see – colours, textures, plants develops language. Describing and creating an imaginary world the other side of the hole allows them to express their ideas and realise their imagination can be put into practice. Using the hole as a target to throw stones through develops their hand/eye co-ordination and collaboration if creating a game for others. The possibilities with learning and play in natural environments are endless and only limited by their imagination.
The important part for us adults to do, and which so many of us struggle with, is to let the child lead. Start the activity yourself but if they don’t follow don’t worry and if they take the activity in a totally different direction that is ok also. For instance, I was making fairy doors with a few children. Having seen the rectangular pieces of wood we had cleaved a child exclaimed, ‘Oh, credit cards, can I have one?’ I was mortified but by the afternoon they all had credit cards and had set up several shops around the woods selling building materials or refreshments. This is proof that great collaboration and communication can develop from one child’s imagination, and the importance of child-led learning.
About the Author
Kim Hudson is a qualified teacher and has worked in mainstream or environmental education for over 20 years. Trading for the last 10 years as Inspiring Outdoors she seeks any opportunity to encourage schools, early years settings and families to create lasting impressions for children of all ages. This includes a consultancy on embedding learning beyond the classroom, school grounds development, teacher training for Royal Horticultural Society and Learning through Landscapes, and a LOtC Mark and Quality Badge assessor for Council for Learning Outside the Classroom. She also co-founded Lincolnshire Forest School and Woodland Network, runs a woodland holiday playscheme and is now developing the Inspiring Outdoors Explorer Packs. The first of which is the Woodland Explorer pack available at www.inspiringoutdoors.co.uk.