Why Outdoor Play & Learning is important

At KatieB Kids we have some great ideas for outside play- click on the links below for inspiration.

 

A recent study, by Kiddi Caru, has revealed that parents said their children get 3 hours or less outside per week. Here at KatieB Kids, we have always seen the value of outdoor play and learning, and love spending time in our gardens.

 So, what is so great about the great outdoors?

Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and well-being. Our children get far more than that! As a nursery, outdoor learning helps us to meet our vision that our children become happy, resilient, respectful and fulfilled adults. The benefits of outdoor play are not limited to health and well-being, though. Playing and learning outdoors can help:

·       Improve motor skills

·       Lower body mass index

·       Improve muscle strength

·       Increase self-awareness

·       Appreciation of the environment

·       Improve peer to peer relationships

·       Make use of all five senses

·       Develop a sense of independence

·       Aid brain development

·       Improve communication skills

·       Expand learning space

“There is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.”

This is something we wholeheartedly agree with here at KatieB Kids; we go out whatever the weather (unless its unsafe), as we believe that spending time outside in wet or windy weather builds resilience and, more importantly, it teaches children to not just spend their lives merely tolerating the ‘bad’ days in favour of a handful of ‘good’ days. The benefits of outdoor play in ‘poor’ weather do not end there, though- while playing in the rain children are being engineers, meteorologists, artists, biologists, and musicians.

Risk is natural outside

Being outside offers a natural opportunity for risky play- navigating uneven surfaces, hills and ditches all support children’s risk-taking and teach them how to keep themselves safe. 

Is the garden just for physical play?

Not at all! We set up our garden spaces as ‘outdoor classrooms’, allowing children to access all the parts of the curriculum that they would be able to indoors. We have observed that children’s concentration and emotional wellbeing is greatly increased just by virtue of being outside. There are so many provocations for learning outside, most of which come from nature, which help our children to feel grounded in the environment, weather and season that they’re in.

And lots of outdoor time is great for sleep, too- accessing sunlight during the daytime helps to reset our circadian rhythms, making it easier for our ‘body clocks’ to follow a consistent sleep routine.