By you and for you! Sharing ideas for outdoor learning
In a recent Facebook giveaway, we asked you for outdoor learning activities that have gone down well in your setting. Here are some of the ideas you shared, and we hope they will inspire other early years practitioners and parents.
Nature Play
An activity we love is finding and using natural materials for small world play. This was an African animals habitat set up.
– Katy Patla
Christmas fair using natural resources from outdoors.
– Tracy Carlisle
Planting seeds, counting how many plant pots we have, talking about life and decay.
– Jayne Davies
Making pine cone bird feeders.
– Beverley Oliver
Outdoor Kitchens
All my children love our outdoors kitchen we add all different resources for them to explore. Here they are the chef’s in a cafe. I love how they can use their imagination and take it in any direction they want.
– Katie Lauren Jordan
The mud kitchen provides lots of opportunities, maths: number, ratio, fractions, size, classification etc. Sensory: touch, taste, smell, see and hear are all there.
– Melanie Feltham
We will be playing outside for the rest of the term, they all love concocting amazing dishes in the mud kitchen using a variety of herbs and flowers.
– Emma Toner
Mud pies in the mud kitchen, mixing water and mud and plants, making potions and stew!
– Jen Bond
You can never go wrong with a mud pie kitchen and providing a simple, visual “recipe” is great for modelling ideas for little ones before they experiment with their own concoctions and/or for incorporating literacy and numeracy skills.
– Katy Patla
The great outdoors, even greater possibilities!
My toddler group loved being outside bird watching and playing. But one of the best was our science project of making clear water! It works really well!
– Gareth Jones
Den building and our campfire bread are our favourites with all the children.
– Julie Wilton
Wearing our wellies and puddle suits, finding worms, looking for birds in the sky, enjoying nature and getting dirty. Measuring worms and sticks, planting and watering seeds, making noise on our music wall, filling and pouring in tubes and guttering, lying on the floor looking at the clouds and listening to the world around us. Climbing on tyres and pallets conquering challenges in all weathers!
– Jen Bond
Natural paints – using turmeric, berries and charcoal.
– Cab Benton
With thanks to everyone who entered our ‘Outdoor Learning Giveaway’ on Facebook and shared their ideas!