The outdoors gives children opportunities to use opposites vocabulary in different contexts. Practitioners can encourage the children to use positional words to talk about where they were on the climbing frame, for example, 'I climbed to the top, then I climbed to the bottom of the tower.'
They will then be able to use similar words, for example, in the construction area to describe where they are putting the knights on the castle that they have built. In this way, the children are initially involved physically in the learning and discussion, and the discussions, each involving similar words, provide the bridging point for the activities.
Through the maze
Create links between the outdoor and indoor environments by creating a maze:
* Construct a three-dimensional outdoor maze using different types of equipment.
* Build it so that the children are able to go up and down as well as in and out of the structure.
* Incorporate equipment such as slides, tunnels and ladders.
* Provide several entrances and exits to the maze and more than one way to travel through it.
* Make sure that the maze has different sizes of openings, and several changes of levels, so that you can observe with ease how much practice younger children will get at turning, climbing, jumping and following each other.
* Add to the maze daily and then dismantle one piece each day.
* Invite the children to use recycled materials to build a similar maze inside for small-world characters.
Get active
Dig in
Convert the sand tray into a site for an archaeological dig; bury items that can be sorted by categories such as old and new, heavy and light; and invite the children to dig up the objects and label them.
On the roads
Use chalk or white paint to draw out a system of roads where the children can ride the bikes and scooters. Involve the children in drawing and making road signs for the system. Talk about 'stop' and 'go' signs, and provide arrows to indicate up and down and left and right turns. Identify a place where a bike rider can practise reversing round a corner and pedalling forwards and backwards. Identify where riders may go fast and where they must cycle slowly. Discuss why there are speed regulations on roads.
Tunnel vision
Build a very long tunnel. Use netting in parts so that the interior of the tunnel is not too dark. Use an in/out entrance board for the children to record who is in the tunnel. Discuss what it feels likes crawling through the tunnel from the beginning to end. Tape record children's experiences of travelling through other tunnels and over and under bridges in real life.
Circuit training
Invite the children to help build a fitness circuit using large equipment.
Discuss how many times you have to step on and off the bench, jump in and out of the hoops, raise small weights up and down. You could extend the activity by encouraging participants to keep their own fitness log recording how often they do circuit training.
In all directions
Backwards and forwards
Use large plastic blocks to construct a short tunnel or bridge for a Roamer or other programmable toy to travel through. Talk about how to identify the start and end of the journey and use words such as backwards and forwards and turn right and turn left. You could provide pens and paper to record the journeys that the Roamer makes.
Clock on
Set up a role-play site office in the outdoors alongside the construction area and resource with hard hats, clipboards and building plans and redundant computer keyboards as well as a clock and writing materials. Use in and out cards to indicate who is working on the building site as well as a rota for clocking on and off work. Discuss safety issues of working on a construction site. Demonstrate switching machines on and off. Encourage the children to make health and safety notices.
On a roll
Fix long pieces of wallpaper to fences or walls or lay them on the ground and resource the area with adult paint rollers and trays. Encourage the children to paint using large arm movements and together make up simple singing rhymes that include words such as up and down and backwards and forwards to help the children paint smoothly with the roller.
Camera angles
Take a video film of the children using the environment and convert it into a video link sequence for the computer. Encourage the children to provide the running commentary for the film.
Show the children how to use a digital camera and ask them to take photographs from different positions such as up on the climbing frame, or down on the ground. Print out the results, invite the children to glue the photographs back to back, and use them as an opposites mobile.
Use a camera to take a series of movement photographs and make a zigzag book to show how some children climbed up and down or on and off.
In close-up
For real excitement set up a lap-top computer linked to a digital microscope so that even the smallest insect that has been discovered in the digging patch can be examined in great detail. Encourage the children to describe what they can see on the screen and talk about the microscope making things look bigger than they are.
Make available hand lenses, on a table, grains of sugar and salt and some dark paper, to provide contrast. Encourage the children to look through the lenses and observe the tiny cubes of crystal. Alternatively, observe patterns on leaves and markings on twigs. Discuss the children's observations about how different things look through a lens.
