The most exciting day has finally arrived: the garden classroom is now completed! It is totally unique, crafted from 100 percent recycled resources, showcasing a commitment to sustainability and creativity. This space is designed not only to inspire imaginations but also to serve as an effective learning environment. Within the classroom, various learning objectives for children in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) have been carefully integrated, focusing on enabling environments that foster exploration, play, and discovery. From hands-on gardening activities to interactive nature-themed lessons, this classroom promises to enhance the educational experience for young learners, allowing them to connect with nature while developing essential skills in a playful and nurturing setting.
Children with sensory processing difficulties are truly enjoying their new space, where vibrant colors, engaging textures, and soothing sounds combine to create an environment that caters to their unique needs. This thoughtfully designed area not only provides a safe haven for exploration but also encourages them to express their creativity freely, fostering a sense of comfort and belonging as they interact with various sensory tools and activities.
Elliott and Pennie engaged in imaginative play imaginative play The vibrant interior of the Kitchen Role Play area, filled with engaging toys and a colourful carpet, designed to foster creativity and social skills in young learners.A child exploring a lush garden classroom, designed for hands-on learning and discovery.A beautifully designed garden classroom filled with vibrant plants, pathways, and engaging elements for children to explore and learn.Children engaging in creative play fostering imagination and social skills.Children engaging in hands-on gardening activities in a unique, sustainable garden classroom designed for exploration and learning.
The Kitchen Role Play area is a vibrant and imaginative space that allows children to explore the various aspects of a kitchen area. In this engaging environment, young learners can don playful chef hats, wield safe utensils, and utilize miniature kitchen appliances to create their own culinary masterpieces. This area is designed not just for play but also to foster creativity, collaboration, and social skills as children work together to pretend they are hosting dinner parties or serving in a bustling café. Rich with interactive elements, the Kitchen Role Play area encourages children to use their imaginations while also familiarizing themselves with the concepts of food preparation, healthy eating, and even basic mathematics through measuring and counting ingredients. It serves as an essential component of early childhood development, blending fun with education in a way that sparks curiosity and joy in cooking.
Role play in early childhood education promotes creativity, social skills, and collaboration among peers. It aligns with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) objectives by enhancing language and communication through negotiation and idea-sharing. Additionally, it builds emotional intelligence as children empathize with others and reinforces cognitive skills by presenting problem-solving opportunities. Ultimately, role play is a valuable and enjoyable tool for intertwining learning objectives.
The builders have gone home for the weekend, so we have been able to go down and have a look at the garden classroom, which is still in the process of being finished. It’s quite exciting to see the space taking shape, with fresh wood framing, vibrant paint colors selected for the walls, and large windows that will allow plenty of natural light to flood in. As we stroll around, we can almost envision the children engaging with nature in this unique environment, fostering their creativity and curiosity while learning about the flora and fauna right at their doorstep. The potential for outdoor lessons and hands-on activities is endless, making this classroom not just a place of learning, but also a sanctuary where children can connect with the world around them.
We looked at the wood carefully, appreciating its unique textures and colors, and used real tools to practice our skills while taking care to prioritize safety first. We examined the different types of wood, learning about their various properties and how they contribute to different projects. Each tool had its purpose, and we discussed how STEM concepts intertwined with our hands-on experience in this learning adventure, all while engaging the children in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum. Through this process, we fostered creativity and problem-solving abilities, encouraging an appreciation for craftsmanship and the natural materials around us.
The walls have been insulated and covered in recycled wood, creating a warm and inviting atmosphere, while also highlighting sustainable resources. The mosaic textures of the walls add a unique aesthetic appeal, each piece telling its own story of reclaimed craftsmanship. They even made a stunning table out of reclaimed decking, showcasing the beauty of upcycled materials, inviting friends and family to gather around for memorable meals and conversations. This commitment to environmental responsibility not only enhances the living space but also serves as a testament to creative design that respects our planet.
Today marks an exciting milestone as our project progresses. We eagerly awaited the crew to start building the new classroom and took the time to reflect on our hard work over the past few months. We designed and constructed vegetable raised beds and carefully relocated our various wildlife habitats. We discussed the effort we’ve put in, knowing it will be worthwhile when the new building is complete.
Jack and Elliott talked about all the different bugs we found while moving everything, sharing their discoveries with excitement and curiosity. Lottie chimed in, mentioning that there had been too many big spiders lurking in the corners, which made her a bit uneasy, but she gazed at the butterflies flitting gracefully around the flowers with pure delight, admiring their vibrant colors and delicate patterns. The trio spent hours discussing their favorite insects, and while some found creepy crawlies repulsive, they all agreed that nature’s beauty was unique and captivating, especially when it came to the fluttering wings of those enchanting butterflies.
This is the area where the classroom will be built, its dimensions measuring 17 feet by 8 feet. The design emphasizes sustainability, as it will be constructed entirely out of wood, carefully selected for its quality and durability. Furthermore, everything in the classroom, from the walls to the fixtures, will be made using recycled materials, ensuring minimal environmental impact. This includes the doors and windows, which will not only add character to the space but also promote eco-friendliness. The project aims to create an inspiring learning environment that highlights the importance of recycling and sustainability for future generations.
The van packed with wooden materials, ready for the construction of a sustainable classroom.
Holly and Jack stood quietly, gazing at the garden as it is for the last time, remembering countless hours spent planting flowers, nurturing the soil, and watching their hard work bloom into vibrant colors.
This is something that is available to children in large quantities and it’s great to see how the changing elements of the season change the children’s relationship with it.
Checklist of Opportunities
Wet mud
Dry mud
Poking and wondering what will happen when it rains, sun shines
Transporting mud to different places
Mark making with mud
Combining mud with different loose
parts: bricks, pebbles, flower petals and leaves.
Mud and role-playing cooking
Exploring the texture of mud and adding different loose parts to explore
My childminding practice has always been a ‘Garden Classroom’ curriculum and I strive to make the environment accessible and an engaging experience for all children.
When I moved to my home, the main attraction was the garden and the garden summerhouse. Unfortunately not long after I moved in, it became obvious the summer house was not safe enough to use and we had to take it down.
Since taking down the summer house it has been my dream to build a stronger, bigger outdoor classroom. We have been planning since that day and 7 years later we have been given the opportunity to make our vision come true.
The opportunity to apply for a grant from the local council came up in May 2025. This grant was offered to settings in Liverpool to enable them to expand settings and provide new places for children under 5 years of age to access quality education.
The children and I took a visit to the local Garden Center to look at various types of garden buildings. This gave us an idea of space, materials and what we would like the classroom to look like. This information all helped when putting the bid together.
We worked hard putting into place the documentation to provide evidence on how we attend to expand our setting. luckily as we had been on our planning Journey over the last few years this part of the plan was in place. It took us another three weeks and a visit from a council representative to put the policies, financial information information and evidence into place to submit to the decision board.
By the end of June we were given the amazing news that we had been successful with the main part of our bid. This was on the premise we can supply further information regarding the company we had chosen to work with and raise the extra funding needed to cover the entire project. We researched another two building companies to gain more information and chose to go with Eon from ‘All good in the wood’ https://www.allgoodinthewood.co.uk/
‘Who we are, Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do. We’re a vegan-owned business that keeps our community involved with our local trading system. We’re proud of our products being locally sourced, locally finished and installed by local tradespeople, keeping our community personally involved from start to finish! We know exactly where every tabletop, fence post or roof shingle came from and where the trees grew. Call it our sustainable family tree.’
“Ancient trees are precious. There is little else on Earth that plays host to such a rich community of life within a single living organism.” — Sir David Attenborough
Composting is a natural process when natural materials (such as garden waste and food scraps) are broken down by microorganisms (such as bacteria and fungi) to create compost. Compost is full of nutrients and can be beneficial for the soil. sting Important?
By composting garden waste and food scraps, you not only reduce waste from going to landfills but you also create a beneficial product for your outdoor space.
Teaching children about composting is a useful way of discussing sustainability and how we can look after the world around us. It also helps children to understand how their actions can have an impact on the planet. Can be Composted?
When thinking about what items can be put into a compost bin, consider natural garden waste, such as leaves, weeds, lawn clippings and wilted flowers. You can also add most plant-based food waste and natural foods, such as fruit and vegetable scraps and peelings, teabags and eggshells. Other items that can be added include shredded paper (if it isn’t glossy magazines).
It is best to avoid foods that are hard to break down or those that may attract pests or create odours, such as dairy foods, meat or foods like onion and garlic.
Children can be invited to learn about composting using these simple activities.
Collect materials from around the garden or park area to add to the compost bin, such as dead leaves or weeds and leaves. They could also gather fruit and vegetable peels/scraps from lunch and snack time
They could save bits of paper or card from activities, old cardboard boxes and recycle packaging, then tear it up into pieces or use a shredder to prepare them to place into the compost bin or wormery..
Place items into the compost bin and talk about what they can see, what they notice happening and what might happen next. They can take photos of composting activities to see how the mixture changes over time.
Invite children to stir the compost mixture, this adds air to the mixture and helps the composting process. Children could use a broom handle or an old wooden spoon to stir the mixture, depending on the size of the compost bin. Our bin has a handle for the children to turn the materials, this helps with co-ordination skills, and they love taking turns.
Once the compost is ready and it resembles dark-coloured soil (this can take several weeks), invite children to help add the compost to the soil in your outdoor areas. They could dig holes and add small quantities of soil in a planting area or use real gardening tools to help spread the mixture over the soil to add nutrients for growing strong plants.
Throughout my career as a Registered Childminder, I have incorporated holistic learning into my practices. Over the years this has evolved, and I refer to my way of teaching as ‘The Garden Classroom’ which you can read about on my blog. Although this way of learning is primarily outdoors, the learning is year-long and therefore I have created ways of learning no matter the season. The Garden Classroom practices always incorporate the three prime areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and the Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning. Read on to learn how I weave these key components into outdoor play.
OUTDOOR LEARNING
The Garden Classroom is a space where children can learn and grow, connecting to nature and the world around them. Outdoor exploration not only connects toddlers and babies with the seasons and everchanging weather, but also promotes physical activity, a sense of wonder, and an appreciation for the natural environment. Providing gardening activities for my children has proven to be great way to engage them with hands-on learning, including growing food from seed to plate,
food sensory education, pond-dipping and lifecycles, and practicing sustainability through composting and recycling.
The children learn vital skills such as adaptability and resilience by witnessing their environment going through the cycles. This helps them understand the concept of change and builds resilience in the face of transitions. In one area of our garden, we have a pet cemetery. Here, we have buried our family pets and other creatures who have come and gone.
This space allows us to teach the children about the life-death cycle and accept change. Similarly, every year we experience frogspawn, giving us the opportunity to learn about birth and growth as we watch their little tails shrink and their legs grow.
To support the children’s cognitive skills, we provide activities to observe and understand nature through investigation. The children’s favourite activities at the moment are pond dipping and growing and harvesting flowers, fruit, and vegetables. Some of the learning objectives within these activities are linked to lifecycles, categorising, comparison and pattern recognition in nature.
Supporting the children to experience the wonders of changing seasons has a positive effect on their emotional well-being, mine, and Debbie’s too! The children take naps outside and participate in meditation while the birds are singing away. These activities provide opportunities for relaxation and promote a sense of calm and happiness. It is proven that spending time in nature has mental health benefits as well as emotional and physical benefits.
SEASONAL LEARNING
Every season and even every different day outdoors, brings a new set of sensory stimulation by exploring the sights, textures, aromas, even the noises of the natural world. The experiences are endless. The children love finding the strawberries and munching away, and there is no better taste than a sun-ripened cherry tomato, if they leave me any!
Unfolding the characteristics of seasonal vocabulary during our activities also contributes to early language and provides children with the skills to articulate their observations and experiences. Whether its playing in the muddy puddles, counting the frogs or learning to sow seeds, the language opportunities are endless.
The seasons are also a lovely way to promote cultural celebrations and traditions. We love the harvest festival where we like to gather our produce and share with our families, or Diwali where we cover the garden with lights and have a magical Diwali feast. There are many ways to weave cultural traditions into your very own Garden Classroom.
“Lovely to watch her be so interested in how it grows. How she cares for it, and that she’s happy with the end result, we’ve even started growing our own strawberries and sunflowers at home” – Elsie’s Mum.
By incorporating a Garden Classroom into your setting, your children can foster environmental awareness, develop a sense of responsibility and appreciation of the natural world, which in turn lays the groundwork for their future environmental consciousness. Seasonal changes spark natural curiosity and wonder within the children, giving them the opportunity for questioning and exploration, cultivating a mindset of inquiry and lifelong learning.
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) The Early Years Toolkit brings together the best available evidence on key areas of learning and development. It can support all childminders when making decisions on how to improve learning outcomes.
‘My greatest childhood memories are of playing outdoors. Running around, climbing trees, playing in my treehouse, making mud pies, using my mum’s roses to make perfume (not always fragrant!) and inventing new games that kept me, and my brother occupied for hours – these are all things that contribute to a happy, healthy upbringing’
Introduction
My name is Tracie Dowling, and I have been an OFSTED Registered Childminder for over 33 years and a Strategic Partner of Liverpool City Region and Beyond Early Years Stronger Practice Hub. One of my roles has been to support the Deysbrook Childminder Network at the Village Community Centre in West Derby, Liverpool.
Not all childminders are lucky enough to have a large outdoor space attached to their setting; however, this does not prevent them from ensuring the children access quality outdoor learning opportunities. The childminders at Deysbrook meet up once a week at the drop-in session and have access to a community garden where they can grow produce, exercise and access activities. They also regularly organise to meet up at the local allotment, parks, farm, forest, zoo and beaches.
‘The Early Years Foundation Stage states that ‘children benefit from spending as much time outside as possible. This makes a significant contribution to the progress they make particularly in their personal, emotional, social and physical development’
Pumpkin FarmLocal Wildflower MeadowNature ReserveLocal Park
Having the opportunity to learn outdoors can be a holistic and essential approach to education, offering a multitude of benefits beyond the traditional educational setting. Here are some of the ways the childminders take advantages of outdoor learning opportunities:
Enhanced Physical Development:
The childminders regularly take the children to the local forest to experience the natural outdoor spaces which are uneven and inconsistent (logs, trees, pathways) and therefore improve children’s balance, coordination, agility and encourage movement in ways that improve their muscles, bones and physical endurance.
Cognitive Development:
The openair environment of the local park provides opportunities for exploration (plants, wildlife, habitats) problem-solving (how to cross a big puddle?), critical thinking (how to make a den using found objects), decision-making and building essential skills like spatial awareness and adaptability. The children engage in activities such as den building, learning to look after the environment, and exploring nature.
Communication and Language Skills:
Collaboration between the childminders and peers significantly boosts communication and language development. This provides a natural, engaging environment to practice language, explore new vocabulary and develop social skills.
by providing the children with Imaginative play opportunities, exploring the natural world, and interaction with peers all contribute to language acquisition and communication skills which is evident by the children expressing thoughts, asking questions and listening to their childminder and peers.
While in the outdoor area the children listen to natural sounds and explore other sensory experiences (e.g., the rustling of leaves, the feel of mud and sand) this broadens and enhanced language development by using words such as squidgy, squelchy, scrunching.
Personal, Social, and Emotional Development:
When the childminders take the children on visits for instance to the beach this provides abundant opportunities for personal growth and social development. The children learn to manage risks, (being close to water/climbing on slippery rocks/identifying and studying the jellyfish) develop self-confidence, and form positive relationships in the safety of their childminder and experiences with peers.
Knowledge and Understanding of the World:
Outdoor learning offers a direct relationship with nature, enabling children to explore and understand the natural world, encouraging an enduring interest in science, ecology, and caring for their environment.
We welcome childminders and our community family to share our environment, where we exchange ideas’ share surplus produce and have a swap scheme for instance toys/plants/story sacks to promote positive relationships and encourage cost effective way of living.
Literacy and Mathematics:
Outside spaces can serve as an environment for literacy and numeracy activities. Children can count objects, (bugs, shells, sticks) write using natural materials (sand, soil, chalk, sticks) or engage in storytelling and creative writing inspired by the environment for instance using the ’anywhere farm’ story sack at the urban farm.
Expressive Arts and Design:
Open air environments encourage creativity and artistic expression. Children can be involved in activities such as drawing, painting, or sculpture using natural materials, (logs, sticks, shells, pinecones) furthering their artistic development.
The children are very interested in using flowers and leaves to make natural prints pressing the flowers (from my garden) between two pieces of material to bring out the natural colourings.
My personal childminding ethos and curriculum is ‘sustainability in the garden classroom’. I am privileged to have a wonderful outdoor space where I teach the children to care for their environment. We have a wormery to use up food waste and provide our plants with nutrients, water butts to recycle water and feed our fruit and vegetables, habitats for the wildlife such as frogs, bees, bugs etc. We grow plants (not always successfully) using different methods such as hydroponically, using recycled materials and no dig raised beds.
Conclusion
By childminders being creative and giving children opportunities to access various outdoor environments reinforced with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) 7 areas of learning is a pathway in a child’s holistic development. The EYFS framework recognises the importance of outdoor learning, and the benefits of this approach are undeniable. By providing children with outdoor environments for physical activity, cognitive growth, social interaction, and a deep connection to nature, we nurture well-rounded children and enable them to be better prepared for the challenges of life and holistic learning. This is the collective responsibility of parents and educators to ensure that all children have access to these inspiring outdoor activities and environments that will profoundly shape their future in positive and meaningful ways.
We have loved getting outdoors and sowing some salad crops. We mixed the peat free compost, filled the pots, sowed the seeds and gently watered them in to germinate.
Alba Mixing The Vermiculite Into The CompostEveryone Taking TurnsSowing SeedsHelping Each Other Watering The Seeds
We had fun looking around the garden for bugs, we found snails, ants, butterflies, a dragonfly, wood louse, worm and Fizzy our cat asleep in the shade. Mable and Elliott thought the yellow poppies were pretty.
ElliottMableBug HuntWashing UpOutdoor KitchenWater PlayPlaying Around
We had a lovely time in the garden, we are excited to see our seeds germinate and turn into delicious salad crops, so we can have them for lunch.
Tracie's Treasures 