Outdoor Environment
Do you remember having all the time in the world to play outside whether it was running on the grass, digging and making sandcastles in the sandpit, or just swinging as high as you can on the swing or jumping in the muddy puddle?
Hi my name is Jess, I am an educator at Eskay Kids at Springfield. I love being outdoors, taking my shoes off having the sense of feeling grounded and being one with nature and connecting with country. I feel so lucky to be a part of the Eskay team and having the privilege to see so many children come to the centre and enjoy just being children. Watching children leading the play but learning along the way has been very rewarding over the past 9 years at Eskay.
Playing outside grows resilience, self-confidence, initiative, creativity and more. It encourages the joy of movement, it nurtures wild imaginations, experimentation, problem solving, friendships, social connections and behaviours.
The natural logs, tree stumps or round boulders of various sizes in the environment not only add natural beauty to our outdoor environment but also gives important opportunities for improving the children’s physical health and creative thinking. The children have practised balance with their bodies while also counting steps by jumping to the next stump or sandstone rocks provided in our yarning circle.
A couple of weeks ago a child came up to me with a container of sand and asked me if we could draw some numbers in the sand. The child took it upon herself to draw and sing counting numbers, this is child-led learning at its core! After we finished doing drawing and counting numbers, we started tracing our hands which then lead to learning our body parts. This was all done outside in the sunshine in the outdoor environment.
I love how our centre provides an indoor-outdoor programme, whether it’s sunshine or rain children make the choice to be where they want to be, whether that’s inside building blocks or outside running up and down the hill jumping in mud or digging as deep as they can in the same pit this is all child-led.
It is amazing to see children connecting with the land, being outdoors not restricted in any way, and making choices on their own.
Written by Jess Hazard – Educator – Eskay Kids Springfield
