Do you remember making rose petal perfume, plant stew or mud pies as a child? Or damming streams with sticks, stones and 'clay'? Such activities seem to encapsulate my childhood and bring back many happy memories.
My own daughter spent the whole of her fourth summer making 'concoctions' from soil, gravel, plants and whatever she could find in the kitchen - flour, sugar, chocolate powder.
She experimented enthusiastically over several months with substances, textures, consistency, smell and visual effects, like a scientist absorbed in experiments. I watched with interest and supported her explorations, but I didn't getting involved in collecting and mixing the materials - though I did deal with the fermenting results!
Young children seem to be 'connected' to things of the earth (sometimes to the distress of their carers!), and plants and natural materials hold a strong fascination for them. Such play engages children readily and gives practitioners contexts and themes for supporting their learning.
Playing with natural materials can provide learning opportunities across the Foundation Stage curriculum:
Personal, social and emotional development
- A sense of well-being through the therapeutic nature of natural objects
- Playing out experiences and feelings in small-world landscapes and socialising through role-play
- Self-organisation through having, developing and carrying out an idea
- Self-care through learning the habit of washing hands.
Creative development
- Using open-ended resources - leaves can be plates, a branch can be a bridge
- Constructing and creating - patterns, towers, sculptures and homes
- Taking the role of others in 'pretend' scenarios, such as the shop assistant selling fruit (conkers and shells)
- Transferring ideas from previous experiences, such as using a piece of guttering to move pea gravel having used it in water play.
Communication, language and literacy
- Having ideas and expressing them, such as building a fairy castle from sticks, rocks and leaves, then planning in a small group what to do, and how
- Solving problems and collaborating to achieve the solution - for example, working out how to transport a long branch across the outdoor area
- Using story books to explore a theme of burying and finding 'treasure'
- Using non-fiction sources to find out about the animals that lived in shells.
Physical development
- Manipulating small objects and placing them carefully into a pattern of shells or scooping handfuls of gravel into a container
- Lifting, moving, digging and transporting, which develop the large muscles of arms, legs, stomach and back
- Balance and co-ordination as children jump along stepping stones made from slices of tree trunk
- Manipulating and using tools when digging a deep hole.
Knowledge and understanding of the world
- Discovering the natural world, looking at how things live, grow and die, and effects of seasons and weather
- Exploring endlessly with their senses how materials behave, combine and can be manipulated in mud pies, plant stews, petal perfumes and so on
- Finding out and experiencing the properties of objects and materials - soil changes when wet, rocks sparkle in the sun, stone is heavier than wood
- Identifying a problem and trying repeatedly to find a solution, for example, damming a stream
- Selecting the most appropriate tools for a task - for example, which container can hold all the pebbles?
Mathematical development
- Ordering and organising stones or leaves, making a giant spiral on the grass
- Filling different-sized containers with cobbles and moving them, to gain an understanding of volume and weight
- Throwing leaves into the air to see how far they will travel
- Providing every teddy at the picnic with a plate (a leaf), a cup (a shell) and food (little pebbles).
Organisation and adult role
Children can work and play on a much bigger scale outdoors than indoors. They can be more active, use big movements, be noisy and, importantly, be messier.
- Supply waterproof clothing and Wellington boots so children don't feel under pressure to keep their clothes clean.
- Explain to parents why such experiences are important for children and what their child has learned through them that day. Some settings now have the children picked up from the outdoor space so parents can appreciate its value.
- Organise the transition zone so that mud doesn't get trailed indoors.
- Provide sand and soil in as large a pit or space as possible, so that children can get inside the pit and use their whole bodies while playing.
- Store resources near where they will be used, even if this means having an additional small shed (with the bikes in the other). Store resources in containers so that they can be transported outside more easily. Label containers and attach photographs of resources to shelves to make it easier to find and replace items.
- Place resources which children can access on lower shelves.
- Leave natural resources outdoors in suitable containers or just in piles under tarpaulin.
- Involve the children in maintaining, setting out and tidying up the outdoor space - consider what children can learn from sweeping leaves.
- Consider safety issues and carry out a risk assessment. Where possible, involve children in assessing and minimising risk. Do not let safety concerns prevent children from having learning experiences - find a solution!
- Give children contexts for problem solving and collaborating. For example, the children could devise several solutions to the sandpit being too wet and full - what a wonderful opportunity for thinking and working together on a meaningful task!
- Playing with natural resources has great potential to develop over time. Make your planning flexible to allow the children to develop their interests and ideas as they arise. Provide a wide range of interesting natural resources as part of the permanent provision and use your observations of how children use them to develop medium- and short-term plans that extend the children's ideas.
For example, if you see the children constructing with stones and twigs, provide small-world people so they can develop a small-world landscape for imaginative play. Sharing and extending a child's genuine interest is the best way adults can support children's learning.
