The great outdoors - outdoor play and learning

Grounds for Learning (Scotland's school grounds charity) supported Geppetto Nursery to develop and transform its outdoor space.

• Case study: Geppetto Nursery
• Support offered by Grounds for Learning
• Activity ideas

Case study – Active learning in an unlikely space

Despite the lack of windows, the inside space at Geppetto Nursery in South Lanarkshire is a stimulating and interesting place to be.

However, access to the outdoors and natural environment was previously very limited. An audit of the outside space highlighted the need for both staff and children to be close to nature in their urban environment.

Could the small, kerbside area of grass and weeds to the rear of the building be transformed into a safe garden space? This would allow the children to experience nature first-hand and increase the outdoor space available.

Having looked at lots of different garden features, the children created a model of their perfect garden using recycled materials. The nursery used this to raise awareness of the project in the local community and offers of materials and volunteer help flooded in.

After a small grant of £450 was obtained from Grounds for Learning, the children visited a local plant nursery to select plants and features for their garden. Children, staff and parents then worked hard to create the garden and transform their outdoor space.

The new garden includes fencing, a shallow pond, a fruit tree, a habitat pile, pebbles, bark, stepping stones, containers, wind chimes and garden ornaments! The existing railings were painted and used as a backdrop for hanging baskets and containers made from wellington boots and lemonade bottles. Despite the size and location of the space available, the vision and hard work of all those involved has created an extremely popular garden area. This exciting space has created new opportunities for enriching active learning experiences outdoors – whatever the weather!

Support offered by Grounds for Learning

Grounds for Learning can support schools and early years settings in a variety of ways.

Training

We offer a range of courses to support early years practitioners in the use and development of their outdoor spaces, including twilights and INSET courses for individual settings, and central courses through local authorities and from our base in Alloa.

Advisory visits

For settings that would like individual support to use and develop their grounds, one of our experienced professionals can visit to have a look at your outdoor space, meet staff and provide you with tailored advice.

Membership support

Join Early Years Outdoors and benefit from personalised advice by phone or email, regular resource mailings, online access to our resource library and discounts on conferences and publications.

Settings in urban areas are currently eligible for funding to help cover the costs of our advisory service and membership support. For further information contact:

Grounds for Learning, Inglewood House, Alloa, FK10 2HU

tel: 01259 220887

email: Grounds for Learning
gfl@ltl.org.uk

Celebrating Outdoor Play - Activity ideas

Activity ideas from our Early Years Outdoors membership materials:

Celebrating space

Explore dimensions

• Lie down and look at the clouds, talk about the shapes they make.
• Notice the light and shadow as the sun passes across trees and buildings.
• Blow bubbles, fly balloons on string or tie ribbons to tall bamboo canes and watch them move in the breeze.

Encourage movement

• Make stretches of tarmac or grass more interesting with chalk or cones or set up an obstacle course with crates, planks, tunnels, tyres, cones.

Get physical

• Read a story, song or poem together that inspires movement: jumping, spinning, hopping.

Celebrating creativity

Investigate natural resources

• Get creative with natural resources such as mud, sand, and water
• Provide different tools for digging, mixing, collecting and transporting
• Get messy and experience how it feels to use mud or wet sand to form pits, build mounds and create mini play worlds

Think big

• Encourage large artwork by spreading a sheet, wallpaper or tarpaulin on the ground
• Provide ready mixed paint in small squirty bottles, powder paint in shakers, or make runny mud paint with old buckets and spoons

Experiment with sound

• Play with your own volume control: use voices, clap hands, stamp feet
• Have a range of instruments like whistles and bells or homemade ones such as buckets and wooden spoons
• Set up a musical story-trail by hiding bags with instruments
• At appropriate points in a story, find the best instrument to make sounds like rain/horses’ hooves/swishy grass

Celebrating nature

Explore different surfaces

• Handle, smell and describe different natural materials such as herbs, leaves, sand and soil, using various parts of the body: lie down and feel grass tickle your neck, feel sand or puddles between your toes.
• Collect natural materials and make a 3B, touchy-feely collage.

Uncover wildlife

• Explore to see what's hiding underneath objects like logs and bushes.
• Offer new resources for exploring, for example magnifying glasses, soft paint brushes for sweeping insects onto paper, torches and mirrors for looking under and around objects.

Build dens

• Create potential for dens by opening up an entrance into a cluster of bushes or clearing a neglected area.
• Provide den-building resources such as crates, cardboard boxes, blankets and tarpaulins. Include 'joining tools' such as string, tape, ropes and pegs.
• Add to imaginative play by creating a home for animals or storybook characters and explore what type of home would suit their needs.