Enabling Outdoor
Environments
By Sophie Booth
The outdoor environment allows children to explore and experience a wider range of play
opportunities that cannot be accessed through the indoor learning environment alone. The
outdoor environment is a much more flexible space and can be adapted to allow for messier
and more physical play opportunities.
Whilst outside children can also experience the sometimes unpredictable changes in
weather that occur during the cooler months in the UAE and are able to feel the heat of the
summer lessening, air and wind becoming cooler and on the few days that it does
occur – rain!
The outdoor environment also allows children to engage with nature - investigating mud,
digging holes, exploring plants and trees, various natural textures and growing things.
Children spend a lot of time indoors and in constant air conditioning either at home, in their
settings or in cars. As an early years practitioner it is essential that you consider the
educational and play opportunities that you are providing for children when you take them
outdoors, giving them the opportunity to explore and develop an understanding of the
world around them.