Guide: Create-with-Nature play

How to set up and host your own nature play program.

San Francisco Children & Nature

Create-with-Nature programs are open-ended natural loose parts play events designed to inspire curiosity, creativity, connection to the natural world and to each other. Programs can take place just about anywhere: street fairs, schools, childcares, and community programs, on concrete parking lots, grassy lawns, or parks.

While this guide is focused on single events where a facilitator, playworker, or host is present, this guide can also be used to make more permanent Create-with-Nature spaces that can thrive without facilitation.

Video (1 minute): See Create-with-Nature Play in Action

Definitions

What is Nature Play?

Nature play is a learning process, engaging children in working together to develop physical skills, exercise their imaginations, stimulate poetic expression, and begin to understand the workings of the world around them.

Types of Nature Play

Play in and with nature often combines different types of play

1. Locomotor or Functional Play: climbing a tree, etc.

2. Play with Rules: games, etc.

3. Imaginative Play: dramatic or imaginary play, etc.

4. Constructive Play: building or making, etc.

Open-Ended Play

Open-ended play enables children to express their creativity and practice skills in spaces and with materials that do not have a pre-determined use. There are few external rules or expectations to follow, and no pressure to produce a finished product.

Open-ended play:

  • Encourages independent and cooperative play of all types: locomotor, imaginative, constructive, and play with rules.
  • Develops problem solving, inquisitiveness, patience, resilience, and social skills that feed into every aspect of school and life beyond.
  • Can persist for extended periods of time without adult intervention

Loose Natural Parts

Loose natural parts (see below for examples) are materials that can be moved, carried, combined, redesigned, arranged, and taken apart and put back together in multiple ways. Open-ended materials, environments, and experiences encourage creativity and problem-solving.

Steps to run and facilitate your own Create-with-Nature Program

1. Gather Loose Natural Parts

a. Loose parts may include: sticks, rocks, leaves, pine cones, bark, sand, mud, cut sections of tree branches and logs, or other natural materials. b. Elements may vary in size from very small elements such as a grain of sand to very large natural materials such as a tree round, stump, or long branch. We recommend that larger elements that children may climb onto be at least twice as wide as they are tall to make objects difficult to tip. c. In our experience at least three available distinct types of materials for use, excluding any material used as ground cover, will provide for a rich play experience.

3. Set-Up

Choose a space for your create-with-nature zone. Use natural barriers, stumps, logs or crates to create a border around your play area. A circle or semi-circle works well. The space doesn’t need to be small, but small enough to encourage the sharing of building materials to encourage collaboration. Place the loose natural parts, inside or outside containers, just inside the borders. This is your enticing “nature library." Start a couple of projects without finishing them to encourage newcomers to come in and contribute. Stumps and upside down crates can also be used as ‘tables.’

4. Accessibility

Include tables and chairs for more inclusive participation. Do your best to remove obstacles and provide opportunities so that children and adults of all abilities can enter and use the space.

5. Play

Open up the space for play. A group could benefit from a short welcome. At community events participants can come and join throughout. For more information about your role as a host/facilitator/playworker, see below.

6. Clean Up

Ask for help cleaning up. Finding and sorting the different types of loose natural parts back into boxes, bins, or baskets is a fun group activity. Help people get started by placing a few of each item into their respective containers, and then work alongside them to sort more. Show appreciation to your helpers at the end!

Create-with-Nature play in various settings. “Enthusiasm is the glue that fastens knowledge to the body!” --Svane Frode, Norwegian architect, educator, and playscape expert.

Role of the playworker/facilitator/host

  • The role of the playworker is to provide a fun and welcoming play experience.
  • Be enthusiastic about play, and engage in play yourself, while at the same time keeping an eye open to opportunities and potential problems.
  • Show, don't tell: lead by example and modeling as much as possible.  
  • Build something, allow yourself to be excited about it – and then “recycle it” or take it down, and then start rebuilding. This is a way to show that this is not a “take-home art project,” but instead it’s a process to enjoy in an ongoing way.
  • Give children time and space to explore and problem solve on their own.
  • Facilitate teamwork through modelling. For example, ask to join in with others, ask others to join in with you, and share materials. You can also facilitate teaming up by introducing participants to each other, and suggesting group creativity as a possibility.
  • Anticipate potential obstacles or conflicts such as impending collapses/frustration, "turf battles," or hoarding materials, and intervene when needed to help make positive experiences from these challenges.

Encourage teamwork to accomplish larger projects. Two people can build a wall faster than one. A tower builder and a tower decorator can work together to make a beautiful creation. Photo Zach Pine

Consider games to kickstart participation. In this game, children are challenged to lean each of their branched sticks on each other, without touching anyone else’s stick. Photo Zach Pine

Avoid getting attached to any creation. It's good practice to 'recycle' your creation and leave loose parts for others to play with. Photo: Attempting to create a balancing sculpture at Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival 2018. Video: Zach Pine

Want to remember your creation before recycling it? Take a "picture" with your finger camera and carry the memory with you. Photo: Kelli Yon

Nature Play is for EVERYONE. "Kids" of all ages can play. Encourage participation and invite adults too. Hand out materials to draw people in from the sidelines.

See Playwork in Action:

One minute video showing a Create-with-Nature program facilitated by Zach Pine, excerpted from a film by Gabriella Gamboa.

Ideas

In most cases, kids will naturally create their own games and experiences. Sometimes it might take a small spark to inspire creative play. Keep these in your back pocket:

  • Build bridges, towers, structures, castles, turtles, boats…. There is no limit
  • Silent conversation” game where 2 or more kids start with a blank space, and take turns adding only one item at a time in order to make a combined creation
  • Make an obstacle course, a maze, or a bowling game
  • Build the tallest tower: 1. with only 10 objects; 2. with as many objects as you can; or 3. as a team, and anyone can use their hands to hold on and support the tower as it grows
  • Recreate a character from your favorite story with the objects provided
  • Build the slide that sends an object the furthest
  • Create music
  • Imaginative play: cooking, theatre, costumes … the sky is the limit

Take it to the next level

There's no limit to what you can create. Seek inspiration from environmental artists.

Sources and additional info:

Zach Pine Handout | Making and Using Create-with-Nature Zones  SF Children & Nature |  Nature Exploration Area Design Guide  Alliance for Childhood |  Playwork Primer by Penny Wilson   Imagination Playground |  The role of the play associate  Wild Zones |  Create with Nature Toolkit  Wild Zones |  Play Ranger Kit  - how to facilitate create-with-nature play |  Website   Fairy Dust Teaching |  Loose Parts Play  Fantastic Fun and Learning |  Outdoor Play with Loose Parts  Instructables |  Building a Create with Nature Cart  Project Learning Tree |  How to Make Tree Cookies   EcoKids |  Playwork and Professional Development  National Guidelines:  Nature Play & Learning Places by Robin C. Moore  

Encourage teamwork to accomplish larger projects. Two people can build a wall faster than one. A tower builder and a tower decorator can work together to make a beautiful creation. Photo Zach Pine

Consider games to kickstart participation. In this game, children are challenged to lean each of their branched sticks on each other, without touching anyone else’s stick. Photo Zach Pine

Want to remember your creation before recycling it? Take a "picture" with your finger camera and carry the memory with you. Photo: Kelli Yon