Nursery World - Creating a pre-school garden

After moving into purpose-built premises in Tonbridge, Happy Faces Nursery wanted to improve its new outdoor area. There was little money left for outdoor provision, but luckily it is one of 15 nurseries in Kent chosen to take part in a garden project called Kent Spaces to Play Project, which is run by Kent County Council Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership and the charity Learning Through Landscapes. The project aimed to advise and fund the best use of outdoor space for the benefit of all the children. We used some of the funds to provide outside seating for the children, sunshades and an area of decking where the children could enjoy quiet outdoor activities away from the more energetic play, as well as many other stimulating additions.

We used some of the funds to provide outside seating for the children, sunshades and an area of decking where the children could enjoy quiet outdoor activities away from the more energetic play, as well as many other stimulating additions.

We set up a sensory garden area and created a path to it using stepping stones made of pebbles and glass nuggets (see Idea 1).

We also created sunshades, and used them to cover the whole of the play area. The shades were dyed to create a rainbow effect, starting with red and travelling through the spectrum back to pink (see Idea 2).

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