The following topics to explore and investigate are interesting to most young children:
* Minibeasts; growing flowers, vegetables or fruit and eating produce; forces (pushing and pulling, wind power and so on); light and dark (including shadows); colour (in nature, in bubbles or prisms hung outdoors to catch the light); sounds in nature or using recycled materials and the wind.
* Sensory garden or trail.
* Texture trails.
* Resource boxes, such as a windy-day box, to explore features of different weather conditions.
Designing and making
* Scenarios for role play, for example a castle, train, bus, house or den.
* Adults setting challenges, such as 'Can you work together to make a boat to sail on the paddling pool?'
* Walks looking at design features in buildings, vehicles and structures.
* Activities stemming from visits, such as building using real bricks after a building site visit.
* Woodwork.
* Railway set, cars and chalk to make roadways.
Information and communication technology
* Walks to see ICT in the environment, such as traffic crossings and information boards at train stations.
* Remote-control cars, battery-operated toys.
* Digital cameras and videos to record children's play.
* Telephones, including home-made phones and old mobile phones, in role play.
Sense of time
* Books showing the outdoor area at different times of the year and showing experiences from the past.
* Life cycles, such as frogs, butterflies and chickens.
* Planting seeds and watching them grow, and using photographs and charts to track their development.
* Role play focusing on important occasions, such as birthday parties.
* Adults referring to shared experiences and past events, such as 'Do you remember when we...?'
* Compare old and modern gardening tools.
Sense of place
* Map-making of real/imagined places on paper or on the playground using chalks.
* Photographs of parts of the outside area from odd angles for the children to try to identify.
* Treasure hunts following directions.
* Role play of imaginary places, using stories as stimuli.
* Children involved in evaluating and planning their outside area.
Culture and beliefs
* Adults showing awareness of the cultural traditions of the families that they work with and using these as starting points for developing activities.
* Picnics including food from a range of cultures.
* Music and dance from other cultures.
* Experiences relevant to specific festivals/cultural events, such as making Rangoli patterns or a dragon for Chinese new year, and carnival music.
* Caravan play to involve traveller children.
