Outdoor Play provides our children with greater access to an increasingly limited range of interactable, natural, play-based environments. More and more schools and play spaces are becoming places of regimented structure – while many of today’s adults remember fondly their upbringing in local environmental parks, outdoors camps and having easier access to a range of different natural play spaces.

The My Time Our Place V2.0 framework has updates that have been implemented by Jabiru to encourage and support the incredibly important process of play as both a leisure and educational tool.
Coupled with new excursion activities, as well as local engagement, this can significantly increase learning potential.

Why?

The outdoor play space is an ever-evolving space that can be utilised both actively and spontaneously for learning and fun. These sorts of play spaces greatly engage our middle-to-older-years children than conventional playgrounds or indoor activities, as well as providing a non-fixed play space.

The engagement of older children comes down to the challenge provided – a fixed state playground is only engaging while the child is challenged by it. Once they have mastered it, they will seek out further challenges – which is where the equipment can be used improperly. With nature play and loose parts play children are only restricted by their imagination. They can create dynamic spaces and challenges that work to their interests and capabilities, while also helping to engage them in imagination play that helps develop the creative side of their brain, as well as the problem-solving side, as they navigate the challenges of making their ideas come to life.

Nature play, loose parts and mud kitchens also help children to engage with processing and safely exploring the world around them. By partaking in imagination-play, children will naturally process the world around them in a safe and natural way. This was clearly seen during COVID, and the number of mud kitchens children would run where you had to sign in and show your vaccination card. This is an amazing way for children to explore the world around them.

OSHC garden spaces are a wonderful regulation and learning spaces where children can engage in digging, watering and caring for the garden. This can be an effective regulation space, where children can sit and slowly interact with the garden while in a calmer and slow-paced environment. The educational aspect is vital, showing our children how our plants grow and where their food comes from. This space can then connect in with the menu and cooking activities to link these two areas into a more cohesive and engaging process.

Current programs that support Outdoor Play include:

Nature play – focused on the natural environment and imagination play within a natural setting;
Loose parts play – manipulatable resources that can be utilised with imagination play to create ludic (spontaneous and undirected) play spaces;
Mud kitchens – a sensory, focused, tactile environment where children can use pots and pans and natural resources to play;
Garden spaces – both veggie and indigenous garden spaces that are calming, slow-paced environments;
Interactive garden beds – useful in schools with smaller outdoor spaces, garden beds with balance beams, water play etc.;
External nature activities – off-premise experiences during term or vacation care, like trips to local environmental learning centres.

How does data support the benefits of Outdoor Play?

Surveying teachers in 50 South Australian schools, the study found that the benefits of nature-based play and learning for children included:

• better mental health (98%)
• improved cognitive development (96%)
• learning about risk-taking (96%)
• spending time outdoors/in nature (96%).

Barriers to adopting nature-based play and learning for teachers included:

• limited knowledge and confidence about how to incorporate into learning or how to operate the class outside (68%)
• a crowded curriculum restricted their ability to adopt new learning
  (64%)
• a lack of understanding/support from others in the school (38%).