4 Great ways to help extend role play outdoors
Outdoor provision is important in children’s development allowing them to use their whole body to explore their natural surroundings. Role play activities are usually offered inside with home corners and dressing up clothes but how can this be extended to the outside environment?
Open Ended Resources
Children should be given lots of opportunities to develop and lead their play using their imagination. Open ended resources such as cardboard boxes, beanpoles, tubes, blankets and pegs allow children to take objects and think of their own ideas. They can use the resources to create props and direct their play. Cardboard boxes can become racing cars or princess castles; whereas a blanket pegged over a washing line can become a gloomy cave. Open ended resources are easily accessible and can be packed away at the end of the session. Click here for some role play ideas using open ended resources.
Extend Play Opportunities
Practitioners often allow children to create their own ideas during imaginative play but through observing they should also be looking for opportunities to extend their learning. This can be done by offering thought-out props such as a box of pirate props including telescopes, eye patches and pirate flags. This will enable the children to build on their experiences and lead them to think of new ideas. Next step activities for outdoors can be introduced after observing the children’s role play indoors.
Embrace Nature
The outdoor environment is full of natural materials that can enhance play opportunities. Leaves, conkers, sticks and mud are all resources that can be used in role play. Mud kitchens are popular within early years settings and provide children with the opportunity to explore natural materials and try out their ideas. A variety of different sized containers and tools will enable the children to extend their ideas to create potions or mix cakes. Different types of weather can also aid role play ideas for example using snow to create an ice cream parlour serving ice cones or build an igloo for the polar bears; and deep puddles of rain water can help to recreate stories such as “We’re going on a bear hunt.”
Combine Literacy with Role Play
Stories and role play work well together, and this can also be incorporated into the outdoor environment. Acting out stories using puppets and props can help children understand the way stories are structured and the thoughts and feelings of others. Providing story books in the outdoor environment alongside open ended resources can encourage children to recreate the story with peers, further developing social relationships. Story sacks can provide children with an idea for them to build on.
Click here for more ideas on enhancing the outdoor environment for role play opportunities.