Times are a Changin

Gone are the days when all the kids in the neighbourhood ran home, dropped their bags after school and went outside to play with all the other kids. Between after school childcare, structured lessons, sports and video games most kids are too busy to join in neighbourhood play.

One thing that was a skill naturally picked up was adaptability. Adapting to change, adapting to environment, adapting to other kids wishes and requests during play is bessential in the outdoors classroom. Unstructured, unsupervised play was only possible if the kids were able to adapt and change their play according to the conditions that day.

How was this learned in free play?

Peter Gray in his book, Free To Learn talks about true play being the ability to leave play. It used to be you had complete freedom to leave, you could go home or go to another friend’s house or yard. While being in child care means you can withdraw from the play happening, most centres have a list of rules that for safety or convenience have to be followed. Children have to stay within the play yard or the house/centre building. Children have to share, have to participate in group time or activities together without the freedom to withdraw. Kids before, in unsupervised and unstructured play, had to work harder and be adaptable to other kids needs and wants to keep the participants there. They learned if they were inflexible they were often left alone.

When playing outside with friends there were constant obstacles- the ball was not inflated- the fort wouldn’t stay up - falling into the creek meant a soaker. Without parents or adults standing around making suggestions of how to get to the ball to inflate, what was wrong with the fort or how to make a wet boot more comfortable or come to the rescue with an extra pair, kids were left to come up with solutions and adapt themselves or their play materials to continue having fun. Adults are really good problem solvers and sometimes are regulated into having to help (health and safety issue - to walk in a wet boot as my childhood blistered feet could tell you). Other times it is just an adult’s desire to “do something” as Zoe Arnold talked about in “What’s your role?” On our first podcast.

Learning for adults is different than learning for kids. When children are outside they learn many valuable things and have the possibility to learn in any direction without having to worry about adult approval. They can learn without adults knowledge of the correct information or adults often misguided understanding of where the learning is going or that it was even desired to be going somewhere.

To be able to watch a butterfly emerge from a cocoon without having to learn names or stages. To be able to figure out why your fort is leaking without having to learn about waterproofing or best engineering principles. It is the magic of learning . When you come across the information later, either through interest or planned play you have wisdom with you from experience to understand instead of applying learned knowledge to tasks . This only increases your ability to do a task by following instructions.

In today’s time it is hard to capture the magic of play unstructured and unsupervised but check our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/Childonground to get links to my podcast. We will chat this February on the podcast, blogs and newsletter so you can find out how you can create similar situations to increase adaptability for your kids or your home daycare / daycare center.

5 Ways to Get Your Kids to Play Outside

Being in the outdoor learning field one question I get a lot is how do I get my child to play outside. Many parents report their child gets bored, or might ask to go home rather than settling in and getting immersed in their play. 

The first issue to tackle is looking at how your kids play in all environments. If your child is not playing in general it is a stretch to take them to a forested area and tell them to play.

But what about parents / caregivers who have children that get immersed in play at home, at school, with friends but seem to freeze when they go outside in the woods? There are a lot of elements to forest pretend play that are different than at home pretend play. Here are five stumbling blocks for kids (and parents) and solutions to help them over the indoor/outdoor obstacle. 

1. One difference is loose parts. If kids are used to playing with toys with predetermined usage (swords, dragons, castles) versus loose parts - sticks, rocks, leaves that either have to be constructed in reality or in the minds eye it is sometimes difficult for kids to make that leap. Kids that have this problem you can bring more familiar toys with you (bring dragon) and forget a part (oh, I forgot the swords what can we use!). This forces kids to slowly start thinking out of the box and as they get better and better at using loose parts you can move to using just loose parts or natural forest material. 

2. There is also a sensory element as well. Kids have had their toys at home and as babies and on up they explore by picking up, dropping, mouthing pushing but if they haven't done the same sensory exploration outside they may need to start there to get a comfort with natural loose parts. Even the most experienced and complex pretend players in my forest kindergarten will go back to sensory play during season change as new "loose parts" (snow, ice, mud, puddles etc) are discovered or rediscovered or if we go to a new place. But as they become comfortable with the items they start using them for more complex play. To help kids delve deep into sensory exploration forget pretend, forget stories focus on the feel of the outdoors. Let the creek water splash on your hands, bury yourselves in leaves and jump in piles, have a snow fight either with eachother or against trees or rock walls.  As the children become involved in the sensation it will eventually evolve into more pretend play and you can support their journey. 

3. Often times at the house they have "yes" environments - either because it is set up that way or because they know the rules (like not jumping on the couch) and it becomes a yes environment. They can get down and dirty and play without worrying about what they are doing. If there is a big no environment at the forest - no picking, no exploring, no lagging behind (keep up!!) they are more worried about doing something wrong, or are interrupted in their play, so can't get into deep immersion in the play. Instead take them somewhere they can explore how they want without worry about doing something wrong. As they become stronger at play you can bring them to more familiar places that may have more no's but they can juggle and adapt their play because they are experienced outdoor players. 

4. Friends - outside play for kids naturally involve others (my remembered memories are always with other kids). Kids learn from, imitate and build play with other kids in ways they can't with adults.  Start with kids who are experienced outdoor players and soon your outdoor excursions will involve the play they are learning from their friends even if they are not there. 

5. Adults should get messy too - Parents are often times worried about the product, the result and not necessarily the process (they focus on taking a hike, to find a certain flower, or learn a certain skill). However kids get immersed in process often times don't care about product but learn as they go along. Whether it be a sense of limited time for an outing, a general anxiety of being out of your element, or kids out of theirs, or a need to produce the perfect Facebook picture parents sometimes feel the pressure to "do something" outside.  If parents are overly focussed on a particular goal they often interrupt a child when they are getting off track of the adult goal but it is the full immersion in their process, the getting off track, not their parent or caregivers product, which builds good outdoor pretend players. If you are a product oriented adult try bring a project for yourself to stay occupied and free the kids up for some good old fashioned uninterrupted play.