A Curricular Focused, Vibrant Outdoor Learning and Play Environment For EYFS
After completing Bunbury Aldersey CE Primary School’s Daily Mile Track, Nicola, the headteacher, wanted to re-develop another area on their school grounds. This time, it was the EYFS playground that the Cheshire primary school wanted to transform to further benefit their children.
Ian Wood, one of our expert playground consultants, worked with Nicola to redevelop their EYFS outdoor play and learning area in order to bring the curriculum outdoors, allowing the youngest children to truly learn through play.
We have installed a selection of inspiring, engaging EYFS outdoor play equipment to create a vibrant play and learning space.
Physical Development
Nicola wanted to extend the physical play opportunities in the space because, of course, what young child doesn’t love climbing, jumping and balancing?
At one end of the playground, we installed a selection of active playground equipment to create exciting physical play opportunities. The Get Set, Go! Blocks are an amazing addition to the environment as they act like a mini trim trail, which the children can jump, step and climb on safely.
As they’re situated next to one of our energising Climb Through Tunnel Hills, the children love working together to lift and move the blocks to create an adventure trail to the tunnel. They’ve loved jumping onto the hill to avoid the troll in the tunnel before rolling down quickly and running back to the start.
As the children work together to create their own trails, they’re developing their upper and lower body strength, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, and teamwork - not forgetting language and communication skills.
Below these energising resources, we installed our Artificial Grass Playground Surfacing to ensure the children can take safe risks without the danger of serious injury, as well as preventing the elements from preventing vital learning and play activities from taking place.
Roadway
The children love racing bikes and trikes around! Because of this, we have installed a vibrant Wet Pour Roadway next to the physical development space.
A dedicated space for the children to ride their bikes and trikes ensures that they don’t disrupt any other activities in the area. It has also enhanced the children’s imaginative play games as they pretend they’re competing in the formula one or act as a taxi, helping children to get to school on time.
Through the addition of a roadway in the playground, the children are learning important road safety rules through play before transferring this important knowledge, learned in the safety of their playground, outside of school.
Role Play and Den Making
Den making is a fun way for children to develop their fine motor skills, teamwork, problem-solving and social skills, which is why we installed a set of our magnificent Den Making Posts around a bespoke performance Stage.
Arranging the posts around a Performance Stage creates an open-ended and inspiring space for the children to participate in an unlimited number of activities.
The children absolutely love participating in construction play and imaginative play activities as they thread cargo nets through the holes to create a den to share a story and build their own setting for a performance to take place.
Alongside the new stage, we have installed an exciting Play Cabin to enhance the children’s creative thinking. They can peek out the bubble window or serve delicious creations made in the mud kitchen to their customers through of the hatch, while the EYFS teachers also have a large storage area for their loose play resources.
Messy Play
Children love messy play and that’s a fact!
We have created three magnificent, investigative play areas for the children to explore and play within. In one of these areas, the children are introduced to the world of culinary and cooking as they make delicious creations for their customers to try. They love baking up sand cakes, mud muffins and brown soup in their Mud Kitchen – yum!
Encouraging a combination of construction and messy play, our Water and Sand Tables, connected by a Rope and Pulley Materials Mover, has brought out the inner builder in every child.
Through the use of toy diggers and trucks to dig in the sand table, they have been laying the foundations for their magnificent sandcastles fit for a king. The young builders have been moving water across to the sand table to help their sand structures stick together. A brown Wet Pour Splash has zoned the area from the rest of the playground, too.
Opposite the building site, the children have transformed into little engineers, building dams and destroying them with our scientific Water Wall and Damming Package.
They’ve been amazed watching the water flow down the wall before catching it in the water table and working out how they can stop the water from flowing down the table together. Zoning the area from the rest of the outdoor learning environment is a big blue splash!
Playground Fencing
Finally, around the exciting new learning zone, we have installed our Bow Top Timber Playground Fencing to ensure the space is safe and secure for the children. The new fencing blends in with the space well, while gates ensure school staff members can easily access the new play area and provide entry and exit points for the children.
The children at Bunbury Aldersey CE Primary School are having great fun exploring their new playground and learning through play.
If you would like to create an inspiring early years outdoor learning environment through the addition of EYFS Playground Equipment, we’d love to help. Please Contact Us Here for free, expert advice from one of our experienced playground consultants.
