1. Playground Crashers Presented by:
Jenna Kenny, Lead Teacher UW-Whitewater Children’s Center
Eric Seidl, Greener Roofs and Gardens Consultant
Erica Schepp, Director UW-Whitewater Children’s Center

2. Where was your favorite place to play as a child?
Allow a minute or two to share with neighbor.

3. We would like to challenge you to reconsider how you can use your current outdoor space, inspire a few new ideas for you, and give you some tools for planning new outdoor spaces.

4. Children’s Center Playground Before

5. Children’s Center Playground After
Here you can see some of the areas of the Outdoor Learning environment. We will have set time aside for you to go out and explore this area at the end of our presentation.

6. What steps can help you begin planning a new space?
Design
Consider Context
Survey Staff
Preparing children, families
Professional Development for staff
*Eric can talk through the steps they have taken with GRG
*Share Play Space Assessment

7. What areas of development is this child exploring ???
What is the child learning from this experience

8. What areas of development is this child exploring?
What is the child learning?
What senses is this child using?

9. Health and Physical Fine Motor Digging Gross Motor
Finding and collecting “treasures”
Chalking
Gardening
Gross Motor
Open Space
Moving loose parts around
Climbing
Running
Jumping
Do you ever notice on day that you spend a lot of time outside that the children are a little different
Less behavioral issues, Go down for rest easier and eat better
So so many skills that are being worked on outside to continue to develop fine and gross motor skills.
I am going to highlight a couple of the ones I feel are important
One the playground or outdoor classroom you want open space. Space the children can decided how they want to use it. Run, play an organize game, dance , jump. Having open space gives children the option to move their body all different ways and the ways they need.
Moving Loose part around the playground allow the children to participate in whole body movement to get the item they want to move to a new location. Depend on what they are moving it might be more gross motor if it is a heavy object or fine motor if it is a light object. Have large and heavy sticks on the playground allow children that need to participate in heavy work that opportunity
Climb- Children need the opportunity to climb on the play. We let the children make their own climbing area. Trees and sticks make great climbing pieces.
The children often wear helmets when climbing and they have to get themselves up. We never put children on climbing things they have to get up on their own

13. Social and Emotional Development
Cooperation
teamwork
turn-taking
Risk-taking
Picture of Jowan climbing tree
Taking risks allows children to build their self-esteem and confidence by assessing their own skill or ability to match the demand of the environment - how high can I climb? Can i jump that far? Will this branch hold my weight? Can I balance on this?
Jowan and Cora

14. Cognitive and General Knowledge
“Proximity to,views of, and daily exposure to natural settings increases children’s ability to focus and enhances cognitive abilities” (Wells, 2000).
Extend topics of study from classroom to outdoors
Hands-on experiences using multiple senses
Opportunities to compare, contrast, organize, plan, create, construct
These children were inspired by a large sunflower growing on the playground. One child used the ipod to take a picture of it. Outside, they measured the plant with string, picked seeds from the flower, compared how tall it was to them, admired the beauty of the colors. Inside they acted out how a seed grows, sequenced the growth cycle, drew pictures of sunflowers, used cubes to build a tower as high as the sunflower, etc.
Olivia’s “Tall sunflower”

15. Cognitive - Tinkering, experimenting, exploring with materials

16. Cognitive - Building, problem-solving, patterning

17. Literacy Bring Books Outside! Have story time outside
Have a book box by the door to the outside environment that comes outside with you
Have a little library outside.
Have story time outside
Find a large space and act out the story
Bringing books outside can be done with all ages. Having books outside helps promote appreciation for books, how print works and early reading skills.
I often ask my teacher why can't the children bring a book outside?
Great lessons on what happens to a book if it gets left outside

20. Language and Communication
Language can be promoted by...
Open-ended play
Child-directed
Pretend play
Large and small group interaction
Asking open-ended questions
Anecdotal and Observation notes
Written
Videos
Open end play allows time for to express themselve
Child directed play on the playground allows the children time to imagine and play what they are interested in
Allowing children to engage in pretend play also promotes language development
Being outside in a natural play space allows time for group interaction and small group interaction
Can have morning meeting or circle time outside
Could do small groups outside
Children can also choose to pick to interact in a small group or a large group outside
Make sure to get outside and document the different language that is happening
This can happen at all ages

23. Questions??
Let’s go explore outside!!!

24. References and Resources
CHILDREN’S BOOKS AND RESOURCES REVIEW
Explore the Great Outdoors with Your Child
Natural Start Alliance
Natural Playgrounds for Infants and Toddlers
Playing with Nature: Supporting Preschoolers’ Creativity in Natural Outdoor Classrooms
Schlitz Audubon Nature Center
The Role of Risk in Play and Learning learning