Outdoor play is great for learning, development and wellbeing. When we’re out in nature and fresh air, whether we’re babies, children and adults, we tend to show more creativity and playfulness. There is evidence to show that when we learn things outside, it’s more likely to be learning that sticks. Even neuroscience shows that experiences in nature (like walking through woodland) calm our brains and help us to relax and enjoy life.
So how can we make sure that outdoor play experiences in the baby room are happening and are effective? What are some of the barriers that can get in the way of outdoor play, and what can we do to overcome these challenges?
Challenge #1: Getting outdoors
The first challenge baby room educators face when it comes to supporting outdoor play experiences is getting outdoors in the first place. For many baby rooms this can be a struggle because of the physical lay-out of the nursery. In some nurseries, the baby room is at the top of a flight of stairs so every time you want to make the transition to outdoors, it requires forward planning, time and energy. There is no free-flow opportunity in this kind of setting, and that can make it a real struggle. In other nurseries, there might not be stairs but the babies might still need to be taken through other parts of the nursery to get to the outdoor environment. In can be distracting and difficult to walk through rooms with other children in order to reach outdoors.
Some ideas to help:
- Can the journey from indoors to outdoors be part of the experience?
- Is there a way to make this journey more creative, more playful, more fun? How might you bring a sense of adventure to the journey? Could you have landmarks that the babies look out for as you move down the stairs or through the other rooms? Could the journey become a treasure hunt?
- Are there routines that might help with the physical transition? Do you need to rely on older babies to walk ahead of you and hold onto the stair rail, while others are being carried? How can you help the babies to learn routines and rhythms relating to this transition, so that whenever it begins, they know just what to do? This might mean making up songs or rhymes to teach ‘rules’ or sequences that will help.
Challenge #2: Getting ready
In all nurseries regardless of physical layout, there is the challenge of getting ready to go outside. In winter time that means coats and hats and scarves. On rainy days it might mean puddle suits. In summer, you need sun hats and sun cream. For little babies who aren’t wearing shoes indoors but have started to crawl or cruise, you might want to put on shoes. Dealing with all of these micro-decisions can feel overwhelming, particularly if you’re with the babies while you’re trying to make these decisions!
Some ideas:
- Make as many of the decisions beforehand as possible. It helps if you have a clear policy about what items of clothing and sun protection are needed depending on the weather. So rather than having a drawn out conversation about whether you think it’s sunny enough to merit sun cream, or whether you think it’s rainy enough to have to use puddle suits, try to have a clear set of rules stuck up on the wall that tell everyone what the right decision is. These rules might say things like ‘When the temperature is below 15 degrees celsius, we put on a jacket’, or ‘If the floor is wet, crawling and cruising babies wear rain-suits’. While these points sound obvious and not worth saying, in the moment of trying to get everyone ready, you will be grateful for these rules. It also means that as a team you can check in at the start of the day about what’s going to be necessary for any outdoor play that happens e.g. ‘Today it’s sunny, so every child will need sun cream and a hat’.
- It’s also helpful to store anything you’ll need to get the babies outdoor in a clever system. You’ll already have pegs for coats, but what about little baby shoes – where do those live? What about sun cream? Where does that sit and is it clearly labelled?
- It can help hugely if your nursery invests in items of clothing and sun protection that can work for all of the children. If you have a stash of puddle suits, this can be much easier than trying to work out which baby has what’s needed to get outside in the rain. Similarly, if you have hypoallergenic baby-friendly sun cream and all parents have given their consent for that particular brand to be used on their baby, you can go ahead and apply this rather than trying to find the right bottle for each individual baby. The same is true of sun hats and even woolly hats. In a lot of Australian nurseries, where sun protection is so vital, sun hats are often provided as standard.
Challenge #3: An outdoor play environment suitable for babies
What’s waiting for you when you get outdoors? Is it something you’re genuinely excited about? Or are you putting in the effort to get outdoors knowing that what waits isn’t really that appropriate for the babies? If we take babies out to the space that is used by other children, it can be overwhelming and the equipment is often inaccessible. It can be hard to know how to create an outdoor play environment that is right for babies, including the very littlest babies who might still be lying on their backs during play or might be rolling or crawling.
Some ideas:
- Get down on the level of the babies in your room to experience the outdoor environment as it is. This means that if you have some very little babies in your room, you’ll need to lie on the floor and perhaps roll around to experience what they would experience outside. How does it feel? Is the floor cold? Is it uncomfortable? Is the sky extremely bright for you to look up at? For the older babies, who might be cruising or walking, what equipment can they successfully access outside? What might they want to access but adults divert them, worried that the risk is too great?
- Start with the current experience seen through the senses of the babies and brainstorm alternatives. What could be designed to keep the bright sky from hurting the eyes of the babies? What kind of shelter would help? Is there a way to create a shelter that is more stimulating, e.g. using colours or things that hang down? What would the ideal flooring be? How could you find a balance between it feeling soft and comfortable, but still have the stimulation of the natural environment? Grass is wonderful in this respect because it does both – it’s great to touch and roll around on. But how can you grow grass successfully under a shelter that helps the babies who are lying down not to be overwhelmed by the brightness of the sky? Could there be a way to have a temporary shelter that can be rolled around and positioned above any babies that are lying down to play? There are so many possibilities. It’s up to you as a team to brainstorm your particular situation and creative ways to improve that environment. But remember to start with the babies and their experience, rather than going straight to what would make the space more appealing and attractive from your adult perspective.
I hope this blogpost is helpful in starting to think through outdoor play experiences in the baby room. If you have any other thoughts and ideas, please do comment and share them.
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