playnotes

July 2009 Early Years Outdoors

risk-taking and support physical development. Incorporating mounds, banks and gradients into your space can offer new possibilities for childrens play, and opportunities for movement and physical development. For settings that already have mounds, banks and changing gradients, a common complaint is erosion these places are very popular, and grass will wear away if the area is not carefully managed. In very wet weather encourage the children to play elsewhere, and regularly re-seed, using a grass seed mix designed for very high wear. If possible, do this on the last day of each half-term to give the seeds a chance to establish over the break. If your outdoor area would benefit from re-landscaping, look at incorporating these type of changes in height, as the benefits are immense. You will need to take professional advice (see Further resources) but once you have clear designs, the physical work could easily be carried out by volunteer staff and parents.

Up, over and under!

Do you remember getting giddy, walking along walls and jumping off, climbing so high you could see forever?1 How often do young children today get to enjoy challenging play like this? According to early childhood specialist Jennie Lindon, the risk-averse culture many of our children live in today is damaging their ability to grow, physically, intellectually and emotionally2. But the good news is that early years outdoor play spaces can make a significant contribution to rectifying this. Whether climbing up, jumping over or crawling under, children want to experiment and try physical activities beyond their capabilities its in their nature, and its essential that they do so. Only then can they can build knowledge and skills through experience. Well-designed and well-used outdoor spaces can readily offer children the space and freedom to experience physical challenges with negligible risk. The key is to approach risk and risk assessment with a positive attitude with young children recognised and respected as competent learners, so they can learn how to stay safe without being limited. Allowing them to try, maybe to fail this time, and to try again until they learn a new skill or technique (and then celebrating their success with them!) will not only boost a childs physical capabilities but increase their confidence too. So what do young children want and need? Simply observing their current play will give you lots of ideas. For example, young children love jumping off points. They are drawn to raised levels to walk along. They like to be up high and look down a mound to us is a mountain for a two year old! Whether you want to rethink how your current outdoor features are used, or you are planning new ground works, this Playnotes can help, as it looks at creating and using stimulating and challenging landscape features, including: mounds, banks and gradients tunnels paths and surfaces rills, gullies and beaches walls.

Making the most of mounds, banks and gradients

Manoeuvring bodies and objects up, down and along slopes is great fun and will encourage children to experiment within all areas of their development. Some ways in which mounds, banks and gradients could also be used include: exploring balance, using planks, beams, crates and ropes expressing movement through sound (music or voices) up and down gradients rolling, crawling, jumping down a hill for the sheer joy of feeling the body connect with the earth using the embankment as an amphitheatre for storytelling or role-play sharing and playing out rhymes, stories
Learning through Landscapes

Mounds, banks and gradients

Outdoor spaces in early years settings are often topographically dull flat, mainly grass and tarmac. Even when full of exciting resources and enthusiastic adults and children, the spaces themselves could offer more variety to encourage

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paths and surfaces

Pathways are so much more that just a route from A to B. Textured pathways not only add visual interest to a dull garden area and allow all-year-round access to the whole outdoor space, but can also sharpen mobility skills as children learn how to manage uneven ground. Different surfaces worth considering might include: bark or wood chip tarmac concrete slabs, brick pavers or stepping stones gravel or pebbles mosaics made from tiles/pebbles/ shells Tunnels should have a good amount of hard-wearing surfaces at both ends grass closely mown grass or grass substitute will quickly get worn out and muddy sand. Creating new pathways can be simple and should be long enough to add or complex depending on the materials an element of imagined peril for young children, while being short enough and/or used and their location, but any new wide enough to allow an adult to access it surface will need a sound sub-base to help support the surface. A tarmac, quickly if necessary. paved or other hard surfaced pathway It may be possible to tunnel through might need several kinds of sub-base an existing mound to create additional for example, granular materials such as play opportunities. If you are planning compacted gravel laid with compacted on incorporating a tunnel into your finer gravel on top. If you are considering outdoor space in this way you will installing these types of pathways it need professional advice (see Further would be sensible to engage a builder resources). or landscaper (see Further resources) Concrete pipes are a popular option to ensure the finished surfaces are level (metal tends to bake small children in and not likely to subside or create trip hot weather!) and are readily available hazards. More informal pathways such from builders merchants and pipework as stepping stones or wood chip can be suppliers check your Yellow Pages. created by volunteers. You may well be able to get a length of When you are planning a new concrete pipe for free. They can be buried pathway think about: under a mound, hidden under trees or placed in a prominent position and the width of the pathway can wheelie toys or two children painted or decorated with mosaics. travelling side-by-side move along it comfortably? Making the most of tunnels appropriateness of surface a high With some additional resources tunnels traffic pathway should probably be can be more than just a place to hide: hard and continuous as it will get a lot provide cushions and blankets and the of wear. tunnel will become a tent or a den for location - will it go over gradients, or role-play activities under trees, and what will the effect use a hosepipe at one end and turn a be? tunnel into a culvert or raging torrent initial cost and longer term percussion instruments will sound maintenance how will the surface be entirely different inside a tunnel!

and songs ('Im the King of the Castle'; 'Jack and Jill') problem solving eg transporting or balancing objects.

tunnels
Outdoors is often thought of as a place where children make big movements, loud noises, create life-sized artworks and experiment on a huge scale. But outdoors also offers children opportunities to be small, to hide, to be close to one another and to share intimate spaces and times. Tunnels and other enclosures (such as dens) are an excellent way of providing all this.

up, over and under!

replenished or repaired and how often might this need to happen?

playnotes July 2009

Making the most of paths and surfaces

Pathways should help facilitate a flexible environment for play and learning, enabling children to promenade, access different activities or spaces and use their bodies fully as they experience the different textures under foot. You can enhance these opportunities by: providing a wide range of bikes (some with and some without pedals) that can be pushed or pulled locating resources in different areas so children are encouraged to use the pathways setting up trails providing blankets and sheets, carpet tiles or off-cuts and table mats that children can use to create temporary and transportable pathways.

rills, gullies and beaches

One of the most rare and yet most thrilling additions to an early years setting is provision for outdoor water play. Most settings already have an outdoor tap; if yours doesnt then it should be top of your outdoor play to do list as it will probably be the best value change you ever make. The next investment is a hose-pipe. Then its worth considering how the opportunities for water play can be maximised by making changes to the landscape itself. Fascinating water effects can be created, observed and recorded by children once they have access to running water and interesting textures and gradients. Rills (small streams) and gullies (deeper ditches) are quite simple to create they could be above the surface of the they are probably best situated to one side of the garden in a space that isnt used for other play activities. A beach of cobbles or pebbles, perhaps adjacent to a sandy area or a gulley is simple to construct. Remember to include drainage underneath it, and perhaps cement in place several of the bigger cobbles to help provide a firm structure. A soakaway (trench or hollow, filled with freely draining granular material such as gravel) will be required underneath a beach or at the end of a gulley many do-it-yourself or gardening books offer advice on how to create one (see Further resources). It would also be sensible and sustainable to consider using water from a water butt in the gullies, and collecting water from the gullies to re-use for watering your plants in the garden.

Making the most of rills, gullies and beaches

In colder weather children need to put on wellington boots to splash around in; on warmer days bare feet feel good but check that children wont slip up on nearby surfaces. Make the most of having a water feature in your outdoor setting by providing: pieces of plywood, sieves and buckets so that children can create dams and fountains when water is running through the rills and gullies small world toys utensils and containers for mixing, filling and pouring.

ground (in raised troughs) or dug into the ground and lined with half section drainpipes. More permanent ones could be lined with concrete, stone (see above), timber or metal. The main points to consider include avoiding trip hazards and providing appropriate drainage. Also,
up, over and under!

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case study: earlham early Years centre, norwich

Landscaping at Earlham Early Years Centre has transformed a flat one-acre site into an exciting and challenging outdoor space. One of its main features is a magic mountain about eight metres high which was constructed with spoil from building work. Water has been incorporated, flowing down the side of the mountain into a waterfall, on into a rill, across a sensory path creating a splash area, under a bridge and finally into a pond. From here it is pumped back up the mountain to start its journey again. At any point the water can be diverted in the summer a roll of plastic sheet laid down the side of the mountain becomes a water slide, and all year round the children experiment with various methods (dams, hoses etc) to divert water into the sand pit. There is also a long path, made from a range of materials including bricks and roof tiles,

for exciting and challenging journeys on bike or by foot. And there are logs to climb and balance along, a tiered grassy amphitheatre and various stiles and steps to tackle. Felicity Thomas, headteacher, says: Our children are very that creating new walls is not cheap. Also,walls should always be built by a competent bricklayer. If you do decide to build a new wall, consider carefully where it will go, how high it will be and what its for. The wall might be an enclosure (for example, a raised bed or sandpit) or it might define a space (for example, a quiet area or an area for ball games). Children will use walls for countless other purposes and if this is accepted, the design and placement of walls can maximise their play value.

physically adept and learn to assess risk for themselves at an early age. Usually, if they fall over they pick themselves up and try again because of the encouragement they get not just from staff but from each other too.

Books

1Playing

Walls
Many settings already have walls of varying heights although children are often forbidden from playing on or near the walls. There could be excellent reasons for this perhaps a risk assessment has identified issues such as extreme height, poor condition of the wall or perhaps it is too close to a space where others are trying to work or play. In other cases, however, there is no safety reason for walls not to be used to balance along, jump over, sit on or use for target practice. Adding gradients or steps made from planks or boxes increases the challenge of learning to negotiate awkward and changing surfaces, shapes and routes. Children can make judgements about their own strength and abilities, and about length, height and width. Walls (even low ones) need strong foundations and the correct mortar mix. They also need to be perfectly level and soundly built, and the surfaces around them need to be made good once the wall is complete. All this means

Making the most walls

Low walls offer children opportunities to develop balance and co-ordination and understand the forces of gravity. Higher walls can be used as canvases for giant art or for collaborative target practice and counting games. All walls offer storage possibilities insert stainless steel eye bolts or hooks into the bricks to allow baskets, nets, chalk boards etc to be attached.

and Learning Outdoors by Jan White (Routledge, 2007) ISBN 13: 978-0415 412117 2Too Safe for Their Own Good by Jennie Lindon (National Childrens Bureau, 2003) ISBN 1-900990-97-0 Exercising Muscles and Minds by Marjorie Ouvry (National Childrens Bureau, 2003) ISBN 1-904787-01-0 Outdoor Play in the Early Years, Management and Innovation by Helen Bilton (David Fulton, 2002) ISBN 1-85346-952-1 Many gardening, landscape and DIY manuals provide excellent instructions for carrying out landscaping works visit your local library to see what is available. The Michael Littlewood series on Landscape Detailing (Architectural Press) provides drawn details and are frequently referred to by design professionals. Your library can order these books for you.

Further resources
Available to download from the Member Services pages of our website:

Playnotes Risk and challenge for children

from 05 years Advice sheets Risk Assessments; Setting pebbles into concrete; Surfaces

This resource was originally created as part of the Schoolgrounds-UK membership scheme from the national school grounds charity

Learning through Landscapes

operating in Scotland as

Grounds for Learning

(registered charity no. in England and Wales 803270 and in Scotland SCO38890).

For information on how to find a garden designer/landscape architect contact Member Services on 01962 845811.

To find out more about membership call 01962 845811 or visit www.ltl.org.uk

up, over and under!