Since August 2016, a key driver for nurseries across the area has been their outdoor environment. Now children from Balfron to Cornton are benefiting from more time playing and learning outside, with some growing and selling vegetables, creating ‘bug hotels’ and even toasting marshmallows on campfires.
For six months each nursery has been implementing ‘Loose Parts Play’ into their curriculum – loose parts can include natural resources like straw, mud and pine cones; building materials like planks; scrap materials like old tyres and other random objects.
As these items are less prescriptive than specialised play equipment in terms of how children use them, they offer limitless possibilities for play and learning, encouraging children to use their imagination and building their resilience.
Balfron Nursery Senior, Samantha Hobkirk said: “We’ve been developing a ‘Fairy Garden’ with the construction students at Forth Valley College and are busy working in partnership with Incredible Edible Balfron. Last year local community groups and parents came together to build several new raised flower beds for the nursery polytunnel, and the children have since grown a range of fruit and vegetables such as broccoli, strawberries and pumpkins. The children have been involved throughout the entire process - from planting the seed, to harvesting and cooking – and kindly donated their home grown tomato soup to Incredible Edible’s local harvest festival.”
Kate O’Neill, Head of Cornton Nursery, said: “We wanted to develop an outdoor space that would give children and families a stimulating, fun outdoor environment in which to play and learn together. We created it with the support of Cornton Action Planning Partnership, Community Council, Stirling Council, an Education Scotland Food For Thought Grant and a Community and Families Lottery Grant. The three local toddler groups shared ideas of what they wished to have and as a result, we have an Outdoor classroom, mud kitchen area, growing garden, bug hotel and fairy story area in our garden. A monthly diary of events has now been created to ensure that planned, stimulating community experiences are offered surrounding food and health. This is in addition to the garden opening its doors from 1pm-3pm every Thursday & Friday to all local toddler groups and child-minders; regardless of nursery allocation.”
The project is timely, following statistics published by the Scottish Government recently which show that 1 in 5 children in their first year of primary school in Scotland are classed as overweight or obese.*
Education Development Officer Carolyn Love said: “Stirling Council are ahead of the game when it comes to outdoor health and wellbeing in our early years settings. Stirling is the home of the Daily Mile, which many of our schools and nurseries implement, and we are dedicated to providing high quality outdoor learning experiences. Our nurseries have proven that access to the outdoors isn’t dependant on postcode, as both rural and urban facilities have created their own outdoor learning areas. By engaging local businesses and families in their projects our nursery staff are involving entire communities in children’s learning, which has empowered children to develop their resilience and problem solving skills.”
Education Convenor Alistair Berrill said: “This is a great way for young children to learn about their environment, to have fun, and to get fresh air into the bargain.”
The work that Stirling Council Early Years Teams have been doing is to receive national recognition by the Care Inspectorate, which recently issued ‘My World Outdoors’ - a publication sharing good practice in how early years services can provide play and learning outdoors.