What do we mean by adventure?

Adventurous play doesn’t have to be adrenaline-packed or large scale. After all, a four-year-old hiding in the undergrowth is on an adventure. You are having an adventure when you are challenging yourself, pushing your own boundaries, and being slightly on the other side of your comfort zone. Channelled sympathetically, adventures can set children off on a journey that enriches their learning. They can offer children opportunities to be excited, feel anxious, to make new discoveries about themselves, develop physically and to anticipate what might happen as a result of their actions, building on their knowledge. Adventures help children gain confidence, giving a sense of achievement and motivation to try again.

Some research suggests that they develop concepts of movement and space first, so it makes sense for learning to take place in an environment such as the outdoors that allow these concepts to become concrete.

If someone said to you the word ‘adventure’ what image or memories would it conjure up? Climbing trees? Standing on top of a hill, thinking about running down it? Making a campfire? Exploring woods or playing unsupervised?

Children need challenging play but, the risk-averse culture that many of our children live in today is damaging their ability to grow physically, intellectually and emotionally. Well-designed and well-used outdoor spaces can, however offer children the space and freedom to experience adventurous play with appropriate risk.

How to Tackle Risks & Adventure

Children want to experiment and try activities beyond their capabilities – it’s in their nature, and it’s essential that they do so. Only then can they build knowledge and skills through experience. In defining play the EYFS (2007) says that ‘providing well-planned experiences based on children’s spontaneous play, both indoors and outdoors, is an important way in which practitioners support young children to learn with enjoyment and challenge’ and that through play children can take risks and make mistakes.

An outdoor environment that is safe enough is not one devoid of risks and challenges, so it is important to have written policies, such as a health and safety policy and an outdoor play policy, to support staff in encouraging this type of play.

Play is integral for early childhood education. It’s how children learn what it means to be a person.

Types of Adventurous Activities

• Moving through tall grasses
• Hiding in bushes, hedges, playhouses Climbing on logs/boulders /ladders Dressing up
• Experiencing cooking outdoors Making dens
• Using small world resources in sand, grass, mud
• Using open-ended resources Stories that inspire the imagination
• Swinging on tyres on a rope attached to a tree
• Playing in rock pools, puddles Going on outings