While having a picture-perfect yard may be fun for adults, if you want your kids to enjoy actually being outdoors, things are probably going to need to get a little messy.
"The most important, invaluable thing that families could do with their own spaces — no matter how big or how small — is designate an area that is not precious to you where your child can access the freedom to make it their own space," says Hope Helms, program administrator at Greenplay Northwest, where preschoolers learn "100 percent outside, all year."
Once you've set aside some space, and acknowledged that it may no longer be quite so photogenic, it's time to get creative. Luckily the things that experts recommend to lure kids outdoors away from all those screens are both easy to come by and inexpensive. Wooden boards, bricks, rope, small tires and even tree stumps are all elements that children can use for multiple projects by letting their imaginations run a little wild. They might build a teeter-totter, a balance beam, a slide or any number of other things.
A rain barrel with various sizes of water containers and some shovels can offer hours of creative activity. "Water is one of the best sources of sensory stimulation you can give to a kid," landscape architect and founder of N is for Nature Play, Jena Ponti Jauchius says. "It changes everything it comes in contact with." A mud kitchen can simply be a flat surface with a stock of housewares — think bowls, spoons, pans — and offers the potential for hours of inventive play.
Ponti Jauchius has a sensory garden at her own house, and also designs inclusive play areas designed to foster the development of children's "body, mind and spirit" for schools and other public spaces. She likes to include cozy spaces, something she says can be particularly helpful for neurodiverse children. "It gives them a place that's child-sized that allows them to escape something they find overwhelming... Nature's the fastest way to regulate all of our systems." A quiet space could be a child-size teepee, simply created by securing a group of poles at the top. From there, it's time for imagination. Sunflowers planted around it create a continually evolving palette of smells and colors. Attaching fabric strips at the top allows for plenty of child-directed customization.
While setting up a backyard play structure probably won't be enough to keep children entertained and engaged outdoors after the initial novelty wears off, considering the structure as just one element of a play area and allowing the child to make it their own changes everything. "If they can get
Swings, "especially if they can spin and they can go high," Helms says, are perfect for helping children develop proprioception, that sense of where their bodies are in space. But you don't need a play structure for swings. "There are a plethora of ways to hang swings from trees," Helms says. "You don't even need a big horizontal branch. They make branch extenders that you can attach to a pine tree. There are straps that are designed to string swings from."
Letting your child join in — and even direct — the planning for an outdoor space is key to making the area something they'll gravitate toward, something so enticing it can be an easy choice to play outside.
"Typically, they have zero control over their space, but no matter what age they are, they all have ideas," Ponti Jauchius says. "If they can have some input and be involved in the creation of that space, that will stick with them their whole lives."
For a free, 30 minute Zoom to discuss options for creating a natural play/learning space, reach out to Jena Ponti Jauchius at [email protected].
