Outdoor play is great for many reasons, including physical wellbeing and developing control and strength for manipulating objects and equipment and large movement skills. It also gives your child the opportunity to learn about nature and the world around them.
Outdoor play can take place in backyards, paddocks, driveways, parks, verandas, playgrounds. Here are some outdoor play activities you can try with your child:
- Set up or use any obstacles, or climbing or jumping equipment you have at home.
- Visit a local park and explore playgrounds.
- Visit a friend with a trampoline, fort, slide or climbing equipment at their place.
Being outdoors can inspire lots of kinds of play. Water, sand, trees, fences, paths or driveways can be fun to climb, jump off or ride along and the touch, smell and sights of the natural world can be a great learning opportunity.
Getting bodies moving outdoors
Encourage your child to move in different ways, such as walking, running, jumping, sliding, shuffling and rolling, or move in different directions such as forwards, sideways or backwards. Your child might even want to hop, run, crawl, sidestep, walk or balance through an obstacle course.
Random ideas outdoors
- Watch for cloud patterns that change.
- Tie a rope to a fence or tree and use it for jumping over or skipping.
- Fix paper to a fence and use it for outdoor painting.
- Give children a can of water and a brush to paint a fence, trees or rocks.
- Draw hopscotch squares on a path with chalk and hop or jump in or over the spaces.