By Sarah Seaman PGCE/MA, The Muddy Puddle Teacher
There’s something magical that happens when children step outside.
The child who struggles to sit still suddenly becomes deeply focused, balancing on logs or digging for worms. The reluctant communicator begins storytelling while building dens with sticks. The anxious child softens, breathes, and settles into the rhythm of mud, puddles, and open skies.
And yet, in many classrooms and early years settings, outdoor play is still treated as the “extra”—something we squeeze in after phonics, literacy, or math if there’s enough time. Delve into our Outdoor Play Handbook to gain more tips and insights.
What if we’ve got it backwards?
What if outdoor play isn’t the reward after learning, but one of the most powerful ways children learn in the first place?
At The Muddy Puddle Teacher, we work with educators to rethink outdoor learning—not as messy free time, but as meaningful, intentional, curriculum-rich practice that supports the whole child.
But first, we need to rethink something else: what play actually is. Discover our Minibeasts Lanyards to see first-hand how this looks.
Play is more complex than we think
When adults picture play, they often imagine children freely choosing toys or simply “having fun.” But play is far more layered than that.
In early years settings, children typically experience three broad forms of play.
1. Adult-led play
This is play that begins with an adult and includes structure or shared rules.
Think parachute games, hopscotch, movement games, scavenger hunts, or circle activities.
Adult-led play has enormous value. It builds cooperation, listening skills, turn-taking, confidence, physical development, and social understanding.
It teaches children how to play together.
2. Adult-created play
This is the play many settings already provide every day.
Adults create the environment and children engage with it.
Bikes, sand tools, climbing frames, mud kitchens, playground markings, slides, role-play areas, and construction resources all sit within this category.
The adult provides the invitation; the child explores within it.
A slide becomes a pirate ship. Sand tools become ingredients for a café. Bikes become emergency vehicles rushing to save the day.
This play matters too.
3. Pure play
But there is a third form of play that, in my experience, children are getting less and less of—and it may be the one they need most.
Pure play.
Pure play happens when children create worlds entirely through imagination, curiosity, loose parts, and possibility.
A pile of sticks becomes a dragon cave.
Crates become buses.
A plank becomes a bridge over lava.
Leaves become treasure.
No adult script. No intended outcome. No toy designed for one specific purpose.
Just imagination at work.
And this is where things become fascinating.
Because pure play is deeply complex.
Children are problem-solving, negotiating, storytelling, risk assessing, collaborating, experimenting, communicating, adapting, and inventing—all at once.
It is messy, nonlinear, and often invisible to adults looking for obvious “learning.”
Yet it may be some of the richest learning children experience.
Why children need more pure play
Here is the uncomfortable truth: many children simply do not play enough in a pure play state anymore.
Their worlds are increasingly structured.
Indoors, we already provide adult-led experiences and adult-created opportunities. There are toys with intended purposes, planned activities, timetables, instructions, and outcomes.
All of that has value.
But if indoor spaces are already rich in adult direction, perhaps the outdoor space should offer something different.
Perhaps outdoors should become the place where imagination leads.
The place for pure play.
Instead of filling outdoor areas with oversized equipment, themed stations, or too many fixed expectations, we might consider stripping things back.
Not emptying them—but simplifying them.
Logs.
Planks.
Tyres.
Fabric.
Crates.
Natural materials.
Small loose parts.
Objects without fixed purposes.
Because when children are handed fewer instructions, something remarkable happens: they begin to invent.
A simple stick becomes ten different things before lunchtime.
A group of children negotiate rules for an imaginary kingdom without adult intervention.
A pile of crates becomes transport, housing, storytelling, engineering, and collaboration all at once.
The less we prescribe, the more children create. Lookinf for more direction, try these outdoor play dinsosaur resources.
Children regulate before they learn
Teachers know this instinctively: a dysregulated child cannot absorb information, problem-solve, or collaborate effectively.
Outdoor spaces offer something classrooms sometimes struggle to provide—space to move, sensory regulation, fresh air, and opportunities to reset.
And when that regulation meets pure play? Something shifts.
Engagement deepens.
Language develops naturally.
Relationships strengthen.
Joy returns.
Start smaller than you think
If rethinking outdoor provision feels overwhelming, start small.
Remove something instead of adding something.
Offer crates instead of a planned activity.
Add fabric and logs.
Observe instead of directing.
Ask:
“What are they creating?”
“What problems are they solving?”
“What stories are unfolding?”
Because maybe the most powerful outdoor learning isn’t the activity we planned.
Maybe it’s the play children create when we step back enough to let imagination take the lead.
For more tips and advice head to the Early Years Hub.
