Naturally Curious Play is a woodland-based play session where children can explore and immerse themselves in nature. They are free to run around and try any activity they are interested in. I love that it is non-directed play, it is child led. I have not found another baby group of this type in this area, which offers this much opportunity to explore woodland in a friendly and caring group.
Set in beautiful woodland at the YMCA Outdoor Activity Centre, there are different opportunities to play. My son chooses to first play with the diggers. We love to scoop up leafs; pine cones, and just explore the nature around us. We found a caterpillar on a tree and talked about their life stages. It is a brilliant opportunity to talk to your child away from technology distractions. We talked about trees, the names of different parts of a tree, how they get their food and water etc.
Next, my son enjoyed putting different vehicles down the guttering pipes, set at different angles to see where they roll. This is introducing science skills; we talked about how the bigger vehicles took longer to get down, speed and gravity. Then he had a go at using a pulley system to lift up a bucket he had filled with the vehicles, helping with hand-coordination.
My son enjoyed helping other children dig a big hole in the mud, filling a wheelbarrow, and finding buried treasure. This play session is a great opportunity for children to socialise and work together to achieve an aim. My son particularly enjoyed working with other children to build a wall of buckets, which they had to work out how to balance on top of each other. This was a great problem solving activity.
There is also an opportunity for painting with mud and spray painting a sheet. Although my son enjoyed spraying me with the paint more!
My son loves making mud pies; this was a brilliantly messy activity! Different coloured water is provided, and lots of different types of pourers. This is great for children working on the pouring schema. My son enjoys just pouring water from one container to another. He mixed in flower petals, sprinkles from herb jars, and stirred it up using a wooden spoon, and then presented me with a lovely soup!
The trees that were fallen down provided an opportunity for risk taking; to practice climbing and balance skills. There was also a ladder set up that got higher at one end, which they had to walk along the ladder rungs on. My son really enjoys balancing and practicing this builds his confidence.
There were hot drinks available and ‘Bakes by Bowers’ was there, offering a range of delicious cakes to buy including brownies, cookies, banana bread. These really are an absolute treat!
Katie runs different age group sessions; a 0-5 years session and a 6-10 years session. It is £7.25 for one child, which includes 1 parking space. (Jan 2023)
I recommend taking a change of clothes for your little one, as it gets very messy! Most children were wearing waterproof all in ones and welly’s. There really is no other baby group quite like Naturally Curious Play!
