Children and Creativity

Maybe your 2-year-old thinks he's a dog or a spaceman - or even both at once! Or, you may be trying to persuade your 3-year-old to leave the fireman's hat and coat or the magic wand and tutu at home. As silly as these things may seem at times, don't discourage your children's creative inclinations. Instead, indulge and encourage your child and his/her imagination.

According to The Whole Child at http://www.pbs.org/ , creativity is the freest form of self-expression. Providing children with a means to broaden their creative and imaginative horizons benefits all areas of their growth and development. These experiences help provide a basis for how a child may handle different circumstances later in life.

Here are some ways to support and encourage your child's creativity:

Story Time:

Take turns narrating a story. Letting your child add small details, like naming a dog or character, also allows your child to use her imagination and participate in the fun. You can even make up stories about things you see when you're driving together.

All the World's a Stage: Wooden spoons, an old blanket, and, of course, the cardboard box leftover from the new computer can be great props. Anything around the house can be inspiring to a child as they explore the world around them. As long as there are no safety concerns with any props, the sky's the limit.

Provide a Treasure Chest:

In addition to props, a child needs the right costume. You don't have to pay a fortune for a dress-up trunk—just make your own. Take those old hats in the attic, last year's “must have” shoes that you never wore, some old clothes and costume jewelry, and let the fun begin.

Keep Art Supplies:

Making supplies accessible to your child will allow him/her the opportunity to be artistic when the impulse strikes. It's always good to have your child narrate their masterpiece. By doing so, you won't hurt any feelings by mistaking the purple and blue cow for a dinosaur.

You Can Be Messy:

Messes may happen with creative play and that's ok. Setting safe guidelines is a must, but allowing for a little bit of flexibility once in a while is motivation for endless potential.

You Can Be Silly:

Once in a while, forget you're a grown-up and join in. Become the first mate “the pirate ship—“ aka your sofa. And if “racing” the woman next to you in the cereal aisle makes grocery shopping easier, ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! When you share creativity and imagination with your child, you open a world of unlimited possibilities.

Tarzan Jungle man games

This game needs two players. It is a clapping game and you start by singing:
Verse:
"Tarzan jungle man swinging form a rubber band
Fell down broke his crown
What color was his blood?"
Actions:
Clap your hands once then slap your knees once. Then the other person does the opposite, slapping knees and then clapping hands.
When your partner says "blood" at the end of the song whoever has their hands on their knees chooses a color. You spell out the color and then whoever has their hand on their knees puts one hand behind their back until one person has both hands behind their back.
The person remaining is the winner

Rhyme Clap hands game

Hand clapping game; short, simple, cute and clever Coca cola went to town Pepsi cola shot him down Dr. Pepper fixed him up and changed him into Bubble up

Other Version

Coca cola went to town,
RC shot him down,
7up picked him up,
brought him to Mountain Dew,
Mountain Dew gave him
operation number 9, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10 ( number nine is skipped i don't now why but thas the rules )

Enjoy the game

Dog Where's your Bone

We played this game when it was raining. It is an inside game. A student played the part of the dog. He or she sat in a chair with their back to the class. An eraser or another object was put under the chair. That was the bone. While the dog was turned around with his or her eyes closed someone would sneak up and steal the bone and hide it somewhere on his person. Then everyone would sing: Doggy, Doggy, where's your bone? Somebody's stole it from your home. Guess who it might be you. Then the dog has three chances to guess who took it. Sometimes it was left under his or her chair. If the dog guessed right then he got to do it again. If he guessed wrong than the person who had the bone got a turn as the dog.

Freedom Game

Two teams (minimum of 3 people per team) played. First, to decide who would
go first, you had to "shoot" for it (i.e. Scissors, Rock, Paper...). The
team that won the shoot got to hide first. The other team members covered
their eyes and counted "60 Mississippis". Then they'd go and search for the
members of the other team.

When you captured a member of the other team, you took them to "jail" (one
member of the team searching had to act as a guard).

Variation: [When one person found a member of the other team, they'd grab that person and while holding on to them said "Black Horse Kick and a Caw Caw Caw. If the other person didn't pull away while they were saying the phrase then that person who was grabbed would go to jail.]

The other team members who were in hiding had to attempt to free their team mates from jail. All
you had to do was to run up to the jail, tag it with your foot and scream
"Freedom" or "Alli, alli Instant Free". If the person who came into free
his or her teammates was getting caught by the person guarding jail, the
guard would scream "No chains can break these safety-locks" and that person
would get put in jail with his teammates.

If he didn't get caught, and was able to tag the jail and scream "Freedom" or "Alli Alli Instant Free"-- Everyone in jail would make a run for it and try to hide again. Once all of
the team members were caught, the other team got to hide.

I loved that game. We would play for hours. I still remember some of my
better hiding spots! There were times when we had 10 kids on each team
playing.

Summer Fun: Outside Activities

Sponge Relay
Divide the children into teams. Each child stands with their team in a line with one child in front of the next. The first child in line is the leader. Each team will need two different sized buckets and one sponge. (It would help if each team had their own color of buckets and sponge). Set the large buckets at the start line, these are filled with water. The second set of buckets should be smaller and are set at the finish line, empty. Each child will in turn take the sponge from the start bucket and run to the finish bucket and squeeze it into that bucket and run back. The child gives the sponge to the next child in line and returns to the end of their line. the next child dips the bear sponge into the start water bucket and repeats. The first team to fill their bucket with water wins. Children may have many turns in order to fill the buckets up.

Spray Art

Fill a spray bottle 3/4 full with water. Place a small amount of paint (powdered or liquid) into the water. If you use too much or do not shake well the paint will clog up the spray bottle. Do this for at least three different bottles, with three different colors. Then place a large piece of paper on the floor, on an easel, on a wall or fence outside. Then have the children spray the colored water on the paper. Allow to dry.

Painting with water

You just need a paint brush, and water in a bucket, oh yeah, and a nice warm summer day. Let your child "paint" with the water, and watch how the water evaporates in the warm sun. Paint rocks, trees, the sidewalk anything!!!

Teddy Bear Picnic

Have a picnic on the floor or outside with each child's favorite teddy bear. You can either pretend to eat, or have snack or lunch picnic style.

Pretend to go on a Safari

You are the tour guide on this safari. Have all the children join you on the jungle gym or on a play car (whatever equipment you have). Tell them that we are all going on a safari (or to the zoo.) Tell the children what animals you see. "Look, over there, it's a huge elephant." Ask the children what animals they see. Do the same as above, and pretend to go to McDonalds. Ask the kids What they want to order! Be Silly!

Bubbles

Provide the children with many different ways to create bubbles.

Make Goop

Mix 2 cups water with a little food coloring, add 6 cups of cornflour/cornstarch to make goop. A great outdoor summer activity.

Make Ice Cream!

I love to do this one, and so do my kids. I have done this with toddlers and school agers... You will need:

- 2 bags of party ice

- 1 gallon whole milk (or chocolate milk for chocolate ice cream)

- Ice chest

- 1 box of kosher salt

- Paper cups (a least one for each student, and 1 for each teacher in the building who wants to try it)

- 1 lb. Sugar

- 1 gal. Ziplock bags (2 for each pair of students)

- vanilla extract

- Plastic spoons

- 1 quart ziplock bags (1 for each pair of students)

- paper towels

- Measuring cups, teaspoons and tablespoons

Directions:

- Combine 2 tablespoons sugar with a few drops of extract and 1 cup (8 oz) of milk in a small ziplock bag (quart size) and zip it up. This is the small bag!!!

- Add 2 cups of ice and 1/2 cup of rock salt in a gallon ziplock bag. Place this bag into another ziplock bag to reduce leakage. This is the large bag!!!!

- Place the sealed small bag into the large bag and seal the large bag.

- Have the children pair off, and have each partner hold one end of the large bag and shake it until the ice cream is firm.

- After the ice cream is firm, supply the children with cups and spoons so they may pour the ice cream into the cups and try it.

Nature Walk

Take a plastic bag with you on your next nature walk. Encourage your child to collect leaves and small sticks, and acorns, and put them in the bag. (You can go on a nature walk in you back yard too.) Ask your child about each item they choose to put in the bag. You could also have them create a collage with the objects they collected.

Bug Hunt

Go for a bug hunt outside. Provide a box or plastic jar to collect them, and magnifying glasses to allow the children a better view. Bug Jar: Collect bugs in a jar, and let the children examine them with a magnifying glass. Return the bugs to their homes so they do not die.

Sun Prints

Supply the child with a dark piece of paper. In the morning, on a very sunny day, with little or no wind, have the children find items to place on their paper. Every child should recieve one rock, to keep the paper from blowing away. Have the children arrange sticks, grass, acorns and such on the paper. At the end of the day see how the sun made a picture for them.

Race

Have the children run as fast as they can a measured distance out side. Record the time. Have them run the distance every day at least a few times. Then at the end of the week, have them run again and time them. Compare the individuals time with their first time.

Thunderstorm

When it is raining, watch the rain. Talk about the sounds that you hear during a rain storm. What are the signs that a storm is coming. Talk about storm safety!!!

Measuring rainfall

On a rainy day, set out a container to measure the rainfall. Measure how much rain fell that day. Continue to measure the rain each day, and record for a few weeks. Ask your child to predict how much water will be collected. Ask at the beginning of the day and ask when it is raining. Did their answer change?

Car Wash

Fun for summer hot days. There are two ways you can do this. First is let your child help you wash your car, or you can set up a bucket with wash water, and one for rinsing and let your child wash some of their toy cars.

Water Play

A dishtub filled with water can provide entertainment as well as a great learning experience. Ideas to add to water play: a drop of food coloring, turkey basters, funnels, cups, dish soap, boats, plastic toys, brushes and sponges, ice, cold or warm water, baby dolls or play dishes to wash, toddler safe balls, items that will sink or float.

Sprinkler Fun

Supply the children with a sprinkler to play in on a hot summer day.

What time is it Mr. Bear?

This is a fun game to play outside. You can change the name to suit any theme. The children all line up against a wall or fence. And one child, (Mr. Bear) or the teacher faces away from the children, a good distance away from the children. The children yell, what time is it "Mr. Bear", Mr. Bear answers 1 o'clock, and the children all take one step toward Mr. Bear. The children yell again, what time is it "Mr. Bear", Mr. Bear answers (fill in the blank) o'clock, and the children all take same number of step toward Mr. Bear. This continues until all the children are very close to Mr. Bear then Mr. Bear will answer it's midnight, and Mr. Bear chases the children back to the fence or wall that they started at. The first person Mr. Bear touches will be the new Mr. Bear.

Mother May I?

The child and parent stand at opposite sides of a room. The child asks if he/she may: take so may step forward. i.e. "Mother may I Please take 3 baby steps forward?" the answer would be either, "Yes you may", or "No you may not." The child wins when they reach you. Encourage the use of descriptive words, such as little, big, huge, tiny, and giant. You can also play this with a group of children. The winner would be the one who reaches you first.

Duck, Duck, Goose!!!

The children sit in a circle. One child taps each child on the head and says "duck" when the child taps a child on the head and says "goose", that child becomes the goose and chases the first child around the circle. The first child runs around the circle and sits in the second child's spot. If the second child catches the first one before he/she sits down, the first child had to sit in he middle of the circle (the "pot") for one turn. The second child then repeats the game by tapping children on the head sayings "duck".

Simon Say

This game is designed for children to enhance their listening skills. With younger children I just expect them to follow the directions. "Simon Says: touch your toes" "Simon says: touch your head" "Simon Says: Sit down" etc. With older children I tend to go a little faster. In the traditional game children have to distinguish between statements in which "Simon Says" or if you don't say "Simon Says" and if they do not follow the correct directions they are "out". I wouldn't play this way unless the children are at least school aged. Even then, a simple "Simon didn't say" would suffice.

Parachute/Blanket Toss

Add small stuffed animals to your parachute play. The children can try to keep the animals on, or try to get them off quickly. If you do not have a parachute, a large light blanket or sheet will make a good substitute.

Relay 1

Divide the children into even teams. Each child stands with their team in a line with one child in front of the next. The first child in line is the leader. Each team needs a teddy bear. The teddy bear is placed at the childrens' feet to start. After the signal to start the children will pass the bear over their head to the person behind them until the bear gets to the end of the line. Then the person at the end of the line runs to the front and passes it back through the line. The children repeat this until the leader is the last person in line, the game ends when the leader returns to the front of the line with the bear.

Relay 2

Divide the children into even teams. Each child stands with their team in a line with one child in front of the next. The first child in line is the leader. Each team needs a teddy bear. The teddy bear is placed at the childrens' feet to start. this relay race is just like a traditional race, except a teddy bear is passed off. Each child will run the pre set distance and back to their team line with the bear. The bear is passed off to the next person in line, and so forth until all team members have run the distance with the bear. The team who finishes first and is all sitting down, wins. variation: have the children place the bear on their head, or hold the bear between their elbows, or go backwards, or crab walk with the bear on their belly. If the bear falls the child must start over.

Simple Ant Farm

Materials: Glass Jar, Black Paper, An old nylon stocking, Soil and Ants, A rubber band Fill a glass jar with loose soil, and add your ants. Use the rubber band to secure the stocking on the top of the jar, and cut off the excess, leaving a good amount left so you can easily take it off and put it on the jar again. Tape black paper around the outside of the jar so the ants will build tunnels on the sides of the jar. Don't forget to feed and water your new pets. After a couple of hours, take off the paper and see what is happening. Don't forget to put the paper back on the jar.

What do Ants Eat?

Divide a paper plate into sections with a black marker. Place various food items on the plate (i.e. crackers, sugar, lettuce).Set the plate outside on a nice warm day, in a low traffic shaded area where you have seen ants. Check back after 1 hour to see what has happened. Check back in 2 hours. What foods have the ants taken? Which is their favorite? Ask your child what foods they like the best.

Bird Watching

Provide the children with a few pairs of binoculars so they can look for birds. Talk about the kinds of birds that live in your area.

Bike Day

Have a designated day of the week where your children can bring in a bike. Safely block off a section of your parking lot or use a paved section of your play area for the children to ride their bikes.

Bike Parade

Have the children decorate their bikes and ride them outside for a parade.

Leisure, Entertainment &Recreation Projects

The White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group is recognized as one of the world's leading experts on feasibility, concept and mix development and design of family and children oriented, location-based leisure, entertainment and recreation projects. Our projects are recognized for their economical designs and long term profitability. Projects we have produced have won the following awards:

Best family entertainment center - 2004
Best children's attraction - 1999, 2000 and 2001
Best new family entertainment center - 1998
Best new international family entertainment center - 1994 and 1996
Best new bowling center interior - 1990 and 1995
Best lounge/eatery - 1990
Best new bowling center billiard area - 1990
Best commercial restrooms - 1990

Our services cover every aspect of planning, producing and operating a center - from site selection and feasibility, to concept development and design, to development and training, to operations and marketing. We understand how the market, guests, mix, design, operations and marketing all interrelate and how to craft them into an integrated whole for your maximum profitability and return on investment.
The San Jose Mercury News said the following about one of our most recent projects, Bamboola, a 28,000 sf children's edutainment center:
"On a small scale, Bamboola did what Walt Disney did 42 years ago. Walt Disney took the hopelessly tawdry, sleazy amusement parks of the 1950s and reinvented them as clean, comfortable, wholesome Disneyland. [White Hutchinson] took the tawdry, noisy fun centers of the 1990s, added a dash of the Children's Discovery Museum, and created Bamboola. . . . It has taken the pleasure and comfort of its customers into account with intelligence and care. It uses design to make a better product and a better environment."
The Editor of RePlay magazine said our FEC "feasibility studies are often praised by other industry pros as the creme de la creme of this niche of the industry."
In their groundbreaking 1999 book, The Experience Economy, Joseph Pine and James Gilmore used our Bamboola children's edutainment center as an example of a venue that stages edutainment experiences.

The April 30, 2001 issue of Time magazine referred to the children's centers our company produces for clients as the Xanadus of children's edutainment.
In January 2005, the Food Network featured Randy White, our CEO, on the Unwrapped show as an 'eatertainment' expert.
Randy White was quoted as an expert on children's edutainment projects in the May 19, 2005 issue of the Wall Street Journal.

Children's Outdoor Play & Learning Environments:

By Randy White & Vicki Stoecklin

It is unfortunate that children can't design their outdoor play environments. Research on children's preferences shows that if children had the design skills to do so, their creations would be completely different from the areas called playgrounds that most adults design for them. Outdoor spaces designed by children would not only be fully naturalized with plants, trees, flowers, water, dirt, sand, mud, animals and insects, but also would be rich with a wide variety of play opportunities of every imaginable type. If children could design their outdoor play spaces, they would be rich developmentally appropriate learning environments where children would want to stay all day.

Playground Paradigm Paralysis

We are all creatures of our experience, and our common experiences usually shape the conventional wisdom, or paradigms, by which we operate. When most adults were children, playgrounds were asphalt areas with gross motor play equipment such as swings, jungle gyms and slides where they went for recess. Most adults see this as their model for a children's playground.
So when it comes time to plan and design a playground, the paradigm is to search through the catalogues of playground equipment, pick a piece or two that looks good to the adult and place it in an outdoor space which resembles their childhood memories of playgrounds. This is easy and doesn't take a whole lot of effort. Then once or twice a day, teachers let children go outside for a recess from their classroom activities to play on the equipment.
Today, fortunately, most playground equipment is becoming much safer than when adults grew up. National standards encourage the installation of safety fall surfaces and ADA is making the equipment more accessible. However, limiting outdoor playgrounds to gross motor activities and manufactured equipment falls way short of the potential of outdoor areas to be rich play and learning environments for children. This playground design paradigm paralysis also denies children their birthright to experience the entire natural outdoors which includes vegetation, animals, insects water and sand, not just the sun and air that manufactured playgrounds offer.
It is a well accepted principal in early childhood education that children learn best through free play and discovery. Children's free play is a complex concept that eludes precise definition, but children's play typically is pleasurable, self-motivated, imaginative, non-goal directed, spontaneous, active, and free of adult-imposed rules1,2. Quality play involves the whole child: gross motor, fine motor, senses, emotion, intellect, individual growth and social interaction.3

Childhood of Imprisonment

The world once offered thousands of delights of free play to children. Children used to have access to the world at large, whether it was the sidewalks, streets, alleys, vacant lots and parks of the inner city or the fields, forests, streams and yards of suburbia and the rural countryside.Children could play, explore and interact with the natural world with little or no restriction or supervision.The lives of children today are much more structured and supervised, with few opportunities for free play. Their physical boundaries have shrunk.4 A number of factors have led to this. Parents are afraid for their children's safety when they leave the house alone; many children are no longer free to roam their neighborhoods or even their own yards unless accompanied by adults. Some working families can't supervise their children after school, giving rise to latchkey children who stay indoors or attend supervised after-school activities. Furthermore, children's lives have become structured and scheduled by adults, who hold the mistaken belief that this sport or that lesson will make their children more successful as adults.
Children have little time for free play any more. And when children do have free time, it's often spent inside in front of the television or computers. For some children, that's because their neighborhood, apartment complex or house has no outdoor play spaces. With budgets for city and state governments slashed, public parks and outdoor playgrounds have deteriorated and been abandoned. Children's opportunities to interact in a naturalized outdoor setting is greatly diminished today.Childhood and outdoor play are no longer synonymous. Today, many children live what one play authority has referred to as a childhood of imprisonment.5 Child care facility playgrounds are often the only outdoor activities that many young children experience anymore.Our company first became interested in the opportunities that outdoor play offers children's development when, in 1993, we conducted extensive focus group research with children and parents for a children's center we were designing. We were fascinated when the research consistently showed that children had a strong preference to play outdoors in natural landscapes, and that parents generally supported this kind of play.

Biophilia: The Love of Outdoors

Two new disciplines, eco-psychology6 and evolutionary psychology, are now suggesting that humans are genetically programmed by evolution with an affinity for the natural outdoors. Evolutionary psychologists use the term biophilia7 to refer to this innate, hereditary emotional attraction of humans to nature and other living organisms. Biophilia is the biologically based human need to affiliate with nature and the genetic basis for human's positive responses to nature.8 Why? Researchers say that for more than 99 percent of human history, people lived in hunter-gatherer bands totally and intimately involved in nature. So in relative terms, urban societies have existed for scarcely more than a blink of time.9 Our original nature-based evolutionary genetic coding and instincts are still an essential part of us and continue to shape our behavior and responses to nature.10
Well over 100 studies of outdoor experiences in the wilderness and natural areas show that natural outdoor environments produce positive physiological and psychological responses in humans, including reduced stress and a general feeling of well-being.11,12 It is also a clear-cut finding that people, and especially young children who have not yet adapted to the man-made world, consistently prefer the natural landscape to built environments. Children's instinctive feelings of continuity with nature are demonstrated by the attraction children have for fairy tales set in nature and populated with animal characters.13 Additional anecdotal evidence is that more children and adults visit zoos and aquariums than attend all major professional sports combined.14

Biophobia: The Aversion to Nature

However, if this human natural attraction to nature is not given opportunities to be exercised and flourish during the early years of life, the opposite, biophobia, an aversion to nature, may develop. Biophobia ranges from discomfort in natural places to active scorn for whatever is not man-made, managed or air conditioned. Biophobia is also manifest in the tendency to regard nature as nothing more than a disposable resource.15

Environmental Education

Environmental education needs to start at any early age with hands-on experience with nature.16 There is considerable evidence that concern for the environment is based on an affection for nature that only develops with autonomous, unmediated contact with it. In their early years, children's developmental tendency towards empathy with the natural world needs to be supported with free access to an area of limited size over an extended period of time. It is only by intimately knowing the wonder of nature's complexity in a particular place that leads to a full appreciation of the immense beauty of the planet as a whole. In todays society, environmental education requires that in schools, children have regular personal interaction with as diverse a natural setting as possible.17,18

The Importance of Nature to Children

Studies have provided convincing evidence that the way people feel in pleasing natural environments improves recall of information, creative problem solving, and creativity.19 Early experiences with the natural world have been positively linked with the development of imagination and the sense of wonder.20 Wonder is important as it a motivator for life long learning.21 There is also strong evidence that young children respond more positively to experiences in the outdoors than adults as they have not yet adapted to unnatural, man-made, indoor environments.
The natural world is essential to the emotional health of children.22 Just as children need positive adult contact and a sense of connection to the wider human community, they also need positive contact with nature and the chance for solitude and the sense of wonder that nature offers.23 When children play in nature they are more likely to have positive feelings about each other and their surroundings.24
Outdoor environments are also important to children's development of independence and autonomy. Outdoor space allows children to gradually experiment with increasing distance from their caretaker. While the development of greater independence from toddlerhood to middle childhood can happen within the confines of indoor spaces, safe space outdoors greatly adds to the ability of children to naturally experiment with independence and separation, and the adult's willingness to trust the child's competence which is essential for separation to happen. This is particularly important for children who live in small and crowded homes.25

Children's Experience with the Natural World

Children's outdoor play is different from time spent indoors. The sensory experiences are different, and different standards of play apply. Activities which may be frowned on indoors can be safely tolerated outdoors. Children have greater freedom not only to run and shout, but also to interact with and manipulate the environment. Children are free to do 'messy' activities outdoors that won't be tolerated indoors.
Natural outdoor environments have three qualities that are unique and appealing to children as play environments - their unending diversity; the fact that they are not created by adults; and their feeling of timelessness - the landscapes, trees, rivers described in fairy tales and myths still exist today.26
Children experience the natural environment differently than adults. Adults typically see nature as background for what they are doing. Children experience nature, not as background for events, but rather as a stimulator and experiential component of their activities.27 The world of nature is not a scene or even a landscape. Nature for the child is sheer sensory experience.28 Children judge the natural setting not by its aesthetics, but rather by how they can interact with the environment.Children have a unique, direct and experiential way of knowing the natural world as a place of beauty, mystery and wonder. Children's special affinity for the natural environment is connected to the child's development and his or her way of knowing.29
Plants, together with soil, sand, and water, provide settings that can be manipulated. You can build a trench in the sand and dirt or a rock dam over a stream, but there's not much you can do to a jungle gym except climb, hang, or fall off. Natural elements provide for open-ended play that emphasize unstructured creative exploration with diverse materials. The high levels of complexity and variety nature offers invites longer and more complex play. Because of their interactive properties, plants stimulate discovery, dramatic pretend play, and imagination. Plants speak to all of the senses, so it's not surprising that children are closely attuned to environments with vegetation. Plants, in a pleasant environment with a mix of sun, shade, color, texture, fragrance, and softness of enclosure also encourage a sense of peacefulness.30 Natural settings offer qualities of openness, diversity, manipulation, exploration, anonymity and wildness.31 All the manufactured equipment and all the indoor instructional materials produced by the best educators in the world cannot substitute for the primary experience of hands-on engagement with nature. They cannot replace the sensory moment where a child's attention is captured by the phenomena and materials of nature: the dappled sparkle of sunlight through leaves, the sound and motion of plants in the wind, the sight of butterflies or a colony of ants, the imaginative worlds of a square yard of dirt or sand, the endless sensory experience of water, the infinite space in an iris flower.32

Designing Outdoor Spaces for Children

The goal of designing children's outdoor environments is to use the landscape and vegetation as the play setting and nature as much as possible as the play materials.33 The natural environment needs to read as a children's place; as a world separate from adults that responds to a child's own sense of place and time.
Our company calls well designed outdoor children's play spaces discovery play gardens to differential them from the current design paradigm for children's playgrounds. Some authorities call them naturalized outdoor classrooms or naturalized playgrounds.
There is a sense of wildness about an discovery play garden. Conventional play design focuses on manufactured and tightly designed play equipment. Conversely in a discovery play garden, although there may be some conventional play equipment, many of the spaces are informal and naturalistic so they will stimulate high quality free play and discovery learning.
Children's idea of beauty is wild rather than ordered.34 A discovery play garden that plans for wildness, and provides openness, diversity, and opportunities for manipulation, exploration and experimentation, allows children to become totally immersed in play.35 Children's discovery play gardens are very different than landscaped areas designed for adults, who prefer manicured lawns and tidy, neat, orderly uncluttered landscapes. Discovery play gardens are much looser in design because children value unmanicured places and the adventure and mystery of hiding places and wild, spacious, uneven areas broken by clusters of plants.36
Physical attractiveness and innovativeness are not what is important for quality outdoor play space design. Children need tools, open space, challenge and opportunities to control and manipulate the environment. Suransky calls this "history making power"37 - the power for the child to imprint themselves upon the landscape, endow the landscape with significance and experience their own actions as transforming the environment.38
Outdoor play requires a lot of gear to make a go of it. Loose parts, sand, water, manipulatives, props and naturally found objects are essential tools for children's play. Loose parts have infinite play possibilities, and their total lack of structure and script allows children to make of them whatever their imaginations desire. Simon Nicholson first offered the theory of loose parts in children's play when he wrote in 1971, "In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity and the possibilities of discovery are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it."39 Through children's handling, manipulation and physical interaction with materials and the natural environment, they learn the rules and principles that make the world operate. Outdoor play areas should flow from one area to the next, be as open-ended and simple as possible, encourage children to use their imaginations, have continuity and be perceived by the children as children's, not adult, spaces. They should be designed to stimulate children's senses and to nurture the child's curiosity, allow for interaction with other children, with adults and with the resources in the play space.
It is also desirable to integrate the outdoors with the indoor classroom with one sense of place and identity, so the transition between the two will be almost seamless. Design that allows children to go freely back and forth between inside and outside encourages children to experiment with autonomy from adults, both physically and symbolically.40 It also allows the outdoor space to become part of the classroom, rather than just a retreat from it.
Things children like in their outdoor environments include:water
vegetation, including trees, bushes, flowers and long grasses,
animals, creatures in ponds, and other living things
sand, best if it can be mixed with water
natural color, diversity and change
places and features to sit in, on, under, lean against, and provide shelter and shade
different levels and nooks and crannies, places that offer privacy and views
structures, equipment and materials that can be changed, actually or in their imaginations, including plentiful loose parts.
The structures and equipment do not all need to be manufactured. As much as possible, they should be made of natural materials such as logs, stumps and boulders and use the landscape in natural ways with berms and mounds.
Outdoor areas lend themselves to meeting children's individual needs. Natural environments allow for investigation and discovery by children with different learning styles.41 Using universal design principals, play areas and events can be designed as accessible to children with special needs without accessibility features being obvious.
Plants are vital. In fact, the identity of many of the play areas can be created through ecological theming with vegetation. For example, an interactive water play can be set in a bog or stream habitat. It is also important to incorporate ecological areas that utilize indigenous vegetation and settings so children can experience, learn about and develop an appreciation of their local environment.
Naturalized outdoor play spaces are rich learning environments for all age children. They contain a hidden curriculum that speaks to children through their special way of knowing nature. Every learning center and activity that can be created in the indoor classroom can be created in the outdoors. Specialized areas can even be designed to meet the developmental needs of infants and toddlers.

Cost

Discovery play gardens do not cost more to build than conventional playgrounds. Rather than spend most of the budget on conventional manufactured playground equipment, moneys are shifted to landscaping and creating play areas using natural materials. Discovery play gardens do, however, require specialized design skills to create a holistic and integrated child's world. To accomplish this, a much higher percentage of the budget must be allocated for professional design services than with a dominantly equipment-based playground.

Participatory Design

Participatory design - having children, teachers, parents and maintenance staff participate in the design process - is essential to the success of any discovery play garden. Children's input assures that they will feel it is a special place for them. Teachers input is needed so they will take ownership of the discovery play garden as an outdoor classroom and utilize it to support their curriculum goals. Parents need to be involved so they will be supportive of the concept and learn how the naturalized space and often messy play greatly supports their children's development. Maintenance staff need to participate to assure that they will support the space and provide the maintenance required. User participation in the design process also helps to assure that the design will be culturally respectful.
Discovery play gardens offer children chances to manipulate the environment and explore, to wonder and experiment, to pretend, to understand themselves, and to interact with nature, animals and interesting insects and with other children. They are environments that encourage children's rich and complex play and greatly expand the learning opportunities of just conventional playgrounds. Children's discovery play gardens are places where children can reclaim the magic that is their birthright - the ability to learn in a natural environment through exploration, discovery and the power of their own imaginations.

Creative Games

Children like to play outside and it very important for us to faclitate their game.

This is a few game that can we use to play with our children

Marble Bowls
Age: 6 +
Make a bowling alley for your children’s marbles with them. A good
time to play is before bedtime or on wet days.

What you need:
A box- a shoebox is ideal
Scissors
Paper
Marker
Marbles

What to do:
1. Cut out arches out of the bottom of the box for the marbles to roll into.
2. Above each arch mark the score.
3. Mark a spot on the floor for the player to roll from.
4. The competitors take it in turn to roll six marbles towards the box.
5. If a marble goes through an arch the player earns that number of points.
6. Appoint a scorekeeper, parents are great at this!
7. The first player to reach a certain score is the winner.


Box Cars
Age: 2 +

What you need:Cardboard box
Felt pens
Paper plates
Pieces of cardboard
Paint
Foil pie plates

What you need to do:
1. Cut the flaps off the bottom and top of the box except for the flap at the front of the box
2. Paint the box your favourite colour
3. When dry, paint plates and use for wheels and stick the foil plates on the front for headlights.
4. Cut out two long pieces of cardboard for straps and stick the straps onto the car.
5. Straps go over your children’s shoulders to hold up the car and they’re off racing.


Box target
Age Age: 4 +

What you need need:
A large box
A scissors
Insulating tape
Beanbags or old socks filled with rice or sand to throw
Balls for throwing

What to do:
1. Use the scissors to carefully cut shapes from different sides of the box.
2. Use a variety of shapes such as squares, triangles, diamonds and rectangles, cut out some shapes large and some small and some at ground level and some higher in the box.
3. Edge the shapes with different coloured insulating tape for strength and to make the shapes stand out.
4. You could use a trap door on one side of the box to let children retrieve the thrown items easily.
5. Give children different sized and shaped balls and beanbags to throw.


Clown Capers
Age: 4+

What you need:A large cardboard carton
Felt pens
Masking tape
Scissors
A wooden box, stool or chair
Soft balls or bean bags

What To Do:
1. Use masking tape to close all sides of the box.
2. Draw a funny clowns face with a very large mouth on the strong side of the box.
3. Cut out the mouth with scissors and put the box on a chair outside
4. Put a book or brick inside the box to stop it falling over.
5. Next try feed the clown by throwing balls into the clown’s mouth.


Scoop Ball
Age Age: 4 +

What you need:
A few plastic milk or juice bottles with handles
Tennis or other small soft balls
Masking or insulation tape
Scissors

What To Do:
1. With a pair of scissors cut off the bottoms off some milk or juice plastic bottles
2. Tape over the sharp edges with some masking or insulating tape.
3. Hold the scoops by the handles and use them to catch and throw the balls to your children.


Magazine or poster picture puzzles
Age: 2 +

What you need:Large magazine pictures or poster
Glue
Scissors
Thick cardboard

What To Do:
1. Look through old magazines or childrens books with your children and let them choose pictures they would like to make puzzles form.
2. Help them cut out the pictures and use glue to stick them onto thick cardboard.
3. When it is dry cut into puzzle shapes, with younger children cut into smaller pieces and as they master the skill cut into smaller pieces.
4. Store and label the puzzles in plastic lunch boxes or shoeboxes.

Clothes Peg Tag!
Take a few clothes pegs and put them on the clothes of one player. The player must then chase the others and try and put the clothes pegs on them. Call time up after a certain length of time and the person with no clothes pegs on them is the winner.