Outdoor learning

Involve and engage children

• Talk to children about what they want to do outdoors and help them to realise their ideas.
• Develop opportunities with children to extend indoor play to the outdoors and vice versa.
• Involve them in planning, design and construction.
• Ensure that there is space and freedom for children to run, jump, climb, skip.
• Ask them to think about what resources or equipment they might need outside.
• Observe children closely and interact with them to understand and celebrate what and how they are learning.
• Promote children’s collaboration and partnership.
• Set challenges and problems to solve.
• Understand and appreciate what children are experiencing and learning from their outdoor play and help them to build on this.
• Use photographs, video records or children’s art to help children to recall and think about their experiences and to bring their outdoor experiences inside.
• Find ways to encourage children to wonder, imagine, hypothesise and think together.
• Ensure that children have opportunities to return to and persist with challenges and exploration over time and to deepen their experiences and understandings.