Movement play is central to two-year-olds’ physical and emotional development. Having mastered locomotion, the outdoor environment should offer opportunities to climb, jump, slide, bounce, balance and run. Moving around large-scale loose parts and pushing, pulling and carrying items and wheeled toys allows children to test out their growing agility and dexterity. Close interaction with the natural world enables them to use all their senses to explore the changing environment.
‘Two-year-olds are continually investigating how things work, moving items around, taking them apart and undertaking close observations,’ explains early childhood consultant Julia Manning-Morton, author of From Birth to Three: An Early Years Educator’s Handbook, which won Professional Book of the Year at the Nursery World Awards 2024. Being in outdoor natural environments gives children plenty of opportunities to carry out these investigations. ‘They are fascinated by the effect of their actions on other people, objects and substances and need to repeat their experiments again and again to see if the effect or result is the same or different,’ she adds.
SUPPORTING SCHEMAS
Practitioners should ensure that the outdoor environment supports children’s schematic interests. ‘Provide plenty of containers – buckets, bags, crates – and trolleys for transporting collections of smaller items around. Ensure that there are safe spaces and materials for throwing, dropping and rolling. Plan play opportunities where children can wrap themselves or objects up in a range of materials. Or use large boxes, curtain material and tunnels to create dens or tents,’ Manning-Morton says.
Two-year-olds at Snapdragons Nursery in Redland, Bristol are interested in the transporting and trajectory schemas. Head of early years practice and deputy manager Megan Day says, ‘We’ve increased the size of the mud, sand and water area and included different sized containers from small baskets to large crates and buckets to fill. For the large movement trajectory schema, children can roll hoops down a slope or run cars and balls along loose-parts tracks and guttering.’
Two-year-olds get ‘great satisfaction’ from resources where they can use their whole bodies and challenge their physical abilities, Manning-Morton says.
‘They love working collaboratively to roll tyres or move heavy blocks,’ says Day. ‘They look at how planks or crates can be balanced and joined, which is great for problem-solving and critical thinking. It also supports role play and imaginative games – as their structures can be a rocket one day or a desert island the next.’
DEFINED SPACES
Day finds that it is helpful to plan and ‘section off’ the outdoors environment, in the same way it is done indoors. ‘We use large permanent structures such as slopes and climbing frames, as well as a range of moveable items such as trays, planters and trellises, to divide the areas,’ she explains.
‘This means that things like carefully constructed towers or small-world set-ups can be explored without the risk of a zooming bike. It also enables the landscape to be changed for large group games or smaller activities.’
Liz Edwards of resource provider Muddy Faces has developed a new range of Over, Under and Through Active Boundaries for two-year-olds. Surrounded by fence panels, there is a stile to climb over, an inviting flap that allows children to pass through and a panel that provides options for stepping over or squeezing under.
She says, ‘Physical effort and persistence are needed to push through or scrabble under obstacles, elevating heart rates and fostering resilience, all in the fresh air of the outdoors.’
CHALLENGES
Manning Morton says the challenge is to provide physical play experiences that ‘match the often subtle and rapid changes in children’s physical development’.
Day says, ‘We provide deep sandpits where children can dig and fill up a bucket with sand, rather than scraping it along the bottom of the sand tray. This builds up their gross motor muscles. Similarly, we have a large water tank with a pump system, which enables children to control their own water flow. Our water trays, which are closely supervised, are deep enough to submerge buckets to fill and pour.’
The proprioceptive system helps the body understand its position in space. Specific activities that can help develop this sensory system include ‘climbing, pushing, or pulling heavy objects, jumping, walking uphill, wearing a backpack, crunching or chewing vegetables with a firm texture, weight bearing on hands or arms such as creeping on all fours, hanging by the arms or legs, tug-of-war games and rough and tumble play’, Day adds.
When two-year-olds take on physical challenges, practitioners also need to find ways to help them succeed safely and with their sense of competence intact. Manning-Morton says this enables them to become more ‘autonomous and confident’ when away from adults.
QUIET PLAY
Constant physical challenge is both physically tiring and emotionally wearing, often resulting in ‘exhaustion and frustration’, says Manning Morton. To counteract this, settings should include plenty of cosy areas and shaded quiet corners for children to be alone or spend time away from adults as they develop friendships and emerging pretend play.
Big buys: outdoor equipment for twos
Physical: Try Muddy Faces’ Ladder Stile Set & Double Gate Set, £799.99, or the Under 2’s Outdoor Grassy Crawling Trail from Hope, £379.99. TTS’s Outdorable Toddler Package 2-3 yrs, £4,999, includes wobbly river rocks and planks. Pentagon Play’s Get Set Go! Blocks, £3,345, can be used to create low-level challenges, or try its Play Builder Apprentice Set, £695. Community Playthings’ Toddler Activity Set, £3,580, provides opportunities to explore up and over, in and out. Add Cosy’s Billy Goat’s Gruff Bridge, £86.99, to your story garden, or its £265 Peekaboo Tower. Or try Ministry of Outdoor Education’s Adventure Climbing Set, £2,398.99.
Transport: Try Community Playthings’ Outlast Wheelbarrow, £485, or its Tricycle ‘Roadstar’ £242. TTS’s Winther Viking Two Seater Trundle Bike, £119.99, is great for collaborative play. Or for trips to the local community, Hope’s Winther Turtle Kiddy Bus, 6-seater, £1,649.99, is a must.
Sand and water: Community Playthings’ Outlast cascade play centre double, £3,282; Muddy Faces’ Octagon sandpit and waterproof cover, £429.99; TTS’s Giant Outdoor Wooden Corner Sandpit, £675; or Ministry of Outdoor Education’s Water Worx, £278.29.
Cosy spaces: Cosy’s Cosy Village Barn, £359; Under 2’s Grassy Tunnel by Hope Education, £549.99; Pentagon Play’s Flat Pack Playhouse, £795; or TTS’s Outdoor Wooden Baby Den, £442.99.
Exploration: Cosy’s Toddler Curriculum Sheds, set of four for £1,380, include maths sorting, literacy mark-making, reading and multi-activity features. Or try the Mini Wooden Channelling Stands from Hope, £119.99, and its Under 2’s Outdoor Supportive Easel, £399.99. Big Game Hunters’ Children’s Messy Play Easel, £64.99, has a transparent Perspex panel allowing children to engage with their surroundings.
FURTHER INFORMATION
- Manning-Morton J. (2024) From Birth to Three: An Early Years Educator’s Handbook. Routledge (https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429289217)
