Your outdoor calendar: April 2022

Activity

IN A TIGHT SPOT

Small outdoor spaces present particular issues when it comes to promoting vigorous physical activity. When visiting settings, I often notice that it is upper body strength that loses out if there is no space for permanent climbing equipment. Here are a few solutions:

• Children’s own bodies make powerful counterweights. Physically active play outdoors should include exercises that put pressure on the upper body – so, for example, press-ups, planks, handstands and cartwheels, and playing ‘wheelbarrow’ with friends.
• Create opportunities for children to suspend themselves from their hands or underarms. If you have a tree with a strong enough bough, set up a trapeze – a swing that is too high to sit on, but can be grasped – or a knotted rope. If you have pallets, crates and hollow blocks outdoors, consider building two parapets for a bridge and fixing a broom handle between them for children to hang from.
• Climbing a vertical pole or pulling against a rope fixed to a vertical surface is great for dexterity and strength. Installing a pole means digging a hole that is deep enough to provide stability once it is back filled and packed down with soil. Attaching a rope to a sturdy structure such as a wall or fence allows children to use their feet against the vertical surface and pull up with the rope.
• Crawling on legs and elbows is also a great upper body exercise: make a simple low tunnel outdoors by cutting two hula hoops in half and pressing them into the grass in a line, then placing a blanket or tarpaulin over them. Backwards crawling like a crab is also brilliant for balance and stamina.
• Rolling a ball up and down a vertical surface, lifting and carrying awkwardly shaped objects, pushing a wheelbarrow or pulling a trolley are all playful ways to consolidate physical effort.
  
  

Understanding the world

INTRODUCING THE FOOD CHAIN AND PREDATORS

April is the month when spring really gets going and you’ll no doubt have tried-and-tested activities to aid children’s understanding of the changes they can observe in the natural world: leaves emerging and blossom bursting out; shouty birds calling for mates; scudding clouds and bright blue skies.

It’s also a good time to look for and talk about predators because as young creatures emerge, animals higher in the food web seek out easy meals for their own young. The cycle of life can be a tricky concept to explain to pre-school-aged children, but a food chain, perhaps inspired by the nursery rhyme The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, can be easier to explore.

• Explore the food chain in the opposite direction than might be expected – look out for birds of prey, which for most children will be the ‘apex predator’ they are most likely to spot. Talk about what the bird of prey is looking for (for example, smaller birds, small baby animals), and what in turn those animals are looking for when they are out of their habitat (for example, insects or small reptiles). Scan the sky for birds of prey – they can fly so high they become effectively invisible to the naked eye. Searching and peering for great distances and in bright natural light promotes healthy development of children’s eyes, especially when much of what they observe is close at hand.
• Discuss which animals are vegetarian or vegan, and which are meat eaters (carnivores) or omnivores, like human beings are evolved to be. Clues: dogs are omnivores; birds of prey and cats are carnivores; tortoises are vegan; and most herbivore (veggie) mammals start life with their mother’s milk, but once mature, exist on plant matter, for example cows and rabbits.
• Look for cycle of life clues outdoors: droppings; owl pellets; carrion (roadkill); cocoons from butterflies and moths; and insects beginning to investigate nectar and pollen in flowers.

Nursery World Awards 2022 Entries are open for the Nursery World Enabling Environment award. Find out more at https://bit.ly/3ui7ouC.

April top tips

It’s likely that you will all be spending more time outdoors as the weather improves and the days lengthen. Now is a good time to reflect on plans for outdoor provision over the next few months. By this, I don’t just mean the condition and quality of resources for outdoor play. You should also be looking at and evaluating:

• The amount of time children are able to spend outdoors in single chunks – can they see their ideas through to completion, or return to their play later in the day?
• Are adults engaged in outdoor play themselves, at children’s level and interacting in purposeful ways?
• Is there space for children to rest, retreat, reset and observe? If not, how can you provide this in a simple, cost-effective way? Think quick blanket dens, cushions and beanbags, willow hurdle panels and large potted plants that can be used to divide spaces into smaller, cosier areas.
• Do you have sufficient loose-parts resources, and variety?
• Are children encouraged to take responsibility for collecting and putting resources away? What routines can you introduce to help them understand their important role in caring for the garden?
  
  

Active stories

Stick Man by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler is an old favourite. As well as going on a stick search to create your own Stick Man and family, find longer sticks to make Journey Sticks with.

Ask children to find a stick ‘as long as their arm and as thick as their thumb’ and wrap half a dozen elastic bands around it. Children should find interesting objects that can be attached to their stick using the elastic bands. Each item should ‘speak’ to the children about springtime, enabling them to tell a story. You may find it helpful to give children a theme for their story to help them imagine ‘other lives’ for their found objects.

Natural learning

• On a dry day, ask children to predict or recall where puddles form. Use chalk to draw a perimeter for the potential puddles and compare children’s guesses with the reality.
• Measure the depth and width of puddles. Alongside standard measuring tools such as a ruler, ask children to find objects they can use for non-standard measurements – for example, their own index finger, a stick, a pencil.
• On a bright day, examine the reflections puddles make. Create models with sticks, clay and feathers and place them in the puddles to observe the ‘opposite’ image reflected.
• What will float in a puddle? Why do some objects float? Test children’s ideas in a deep puddle and a shallow one.
• Mix dirt in a puddle to create mud, then show children how to smear the mud onto their forearm or shin. Gently drag a small stick or feather through the mud layer before it dries to make body art.
  
  

Planning ahead…

• In next month’s Calendar, I’m going to suggest several activities to do with elder, so if you don’t have one in your setting, try to find a source so that you have a plentiful supply ready for May. The Pappus Project website includes information sheets to help you identify a range of plants, including elder: https://bit.ly/3t8CgOX
• As Eid draws to a close at the beginning of May, you might like to consider cooking and feasting outdoors, making the most of the warm spring days for a celebratory picnic.
• The annual Walk to School Week begins on 16 May – start reminding parents now.
  
  

STEM

APRIL SPRINGBOARDS

It may be March that ‘comes in like a lion, out like a lamb’ yet April has plenty of weather too. Alongside the expected April showers, there are often high winds resulting in stacks of sticks – perfect for natural play. Collect and curate a huge collection of sticks – try for all sizes and shapes and find a home for the collection somewhere in the garden.

• Tools and equipment that will support stick play: secateurs and long-handled loppers; bow saw; a set of whittlers (veg peelers) and sanding blocks; a crate to store large sticks upright; palm drills for making holes in the sticks; string, twine and rope; small screw-in eye hooks.
• Use long, chunky sticks to beat out a rhythm on the hard surfaces outdoors – musical and mathematical understanding are closely connected and counting (and stomping) up and down using the whole body will help embed number concepts. You could give this extra emphasis on 18 May, which is National Numeracy Day!
• Whittle thin sticks into throwing spears – choose a location where it’s safe to launch the stick javelins, for example onto an expanse of grass or woodchips. How far can children throw their stick? Do they fly in a straight line? What kind of stick goes furthest?
• Make bridges and towers with smaller sticks. Join them with plasticine, clay, or if children are more dexterous, elastic bands or string.
• Weave thin, pliable sticks in and out of fences.
• Cut around 20 thin sticks to specific lengths – for example, 10cm, 25cm, 33cm, 50cm and 1m. Mark each length with a particular colour to help children identify matching lengths and use the sticks to explore fractions – children should be able to find halves, thirds and quarters.
• With a large collection of thin sticks, make spillikins: choose five or six paint colours (I use acrylic DecoPens) and use them to paint matching ends of the sticks. Throw the sticks in the air and, once they have landed, the challenge is to take turns picking out a stick without disturbing any of the others!
• Mark-make with your stick collection and the inevitable mud that follows the season’s rain.