List Of Resources
There are a range of resources that you can use with children in activities to support their play outside. These can be anything that you find lying around or natural materials from outside but here are some ideas of some resources you may be able to find include: sticks, twigs, wood/logs, water, flowers, leaves, magnifying glass, blocks, bricks, cooking equipment, etc. We believe that one way to encourage play outdoor is not to give instructions or ideas of activities which can completed in the outdoor environment because the concept of play provision in nature is for children to explore and identify resources independently and foster their own ideas. Your role to support and expand children's knowledge and understanding where possible is to ask children open-ended questions and challenge their learning further. Activities do no always have to be structured to be beneficial and fun for the children. If you would like ideas here are a few more structured activities.
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Sticks
If you go on a walk with your child, why don't you ask them to document their journey by tying leaves, flowers or what ever they find to their stick. Another activity you could do with your child if you are on a walk and have a river is you could play 'pooh sticks' which is a fun and competitive game that children find fun. You could also create stick men or women using sticks and any other resources your child would like. It would be if you were reading The Stick Man story by Julia Donaldson. Another way children can express themselves and get creative is by drawing with nature.
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Water
Allowing children to play with water by pouring, tipping, spilling, splashing, weighing and experimenting really helps with their maths and is lots of fun. Just creating a simple station with lots of items from the kitchen from jugs, pans, sieves and cups can help achieve this. You could even add food colouring and children can experiment with mixing the coloured water. Another activity that can be done using water is creating paths for water, this can be lots of fun which can be done with bottles, pipes, tubes, buckets, rocks, etc. There is no set way to do this, just allow your child to have fun in creating the water journey.
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