Outdoor Learning and Play

Front matter

International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 34

Liv Torunn Grindheim Hanne Verum Sorensen Angela Rekers Editors

Outdoor Learning and Play

Foreword

It is a unique experience to find a book of such a great timing. When the authors and editors of the book started their work, little did they know how the world would change and how their commitment to the topic of outdoor learning and play could be read as a response to an unexpected critical event. Suddenly, in 2020, the COVID-19 virus caused a myriad of changes to children’s and teachers’ lives all over the world. The pandemic is a crisis for today’s children: the event and the responses to it may follow them for the rest of their lives, from their early learning to their social skills and bodily and mental health. It is our responsibility, as adults, to disprove the hypothesis that they will see themselves as a lost generation, whose lives will forever fall in the shadow of a global pandemic.

We know that transmission is higher in densely-packed indoor spaces, and the danger is ever-present in educational settings because children may become carriers who transmit the virus to the most vulnerable members of society, such as their grandparents, and children and adults with underlying diseases. Living in isolation under quarantine may have some serious consequences — delaying children’s cognitive, emotional, social and gross motor development. Disadvantaged children will probably pay the greatest price, as resources like indoor space, gardens and transport to outdoor spaces will vary between families. We all need the discussions in this book to remind and inspire us when planning and policy is developed in the early childhood educational field in the future.

During crises and difficult times, notice must be taken to maintain Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). This article states the specific right of all children to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to their age, and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been demonstrated that access to playgrounds, parks, open green spaces and landscapes has had an enormous positive impact on those with the opportunity to spend time in them in small cohorts and in fresh air. The unavailability of such places could be damaging for children and families.

People need to meet others, even in difficult times and crises, and doing so in smaller groups seems to be the way to go. Therefore, urban planning and areas for vi Foreword children in kindergartens and schools must consider universal access to green spaces, open landscapes and outdoor ‘garden rooms’ in every neighbourhood. Parks, playgrounds and other green areas provide people with the much-needed opportunity to escape household confinement and enjoy the positive effects of green spaces on their health and well-being, to holistic education, and to create childhood memories.

This book offers a unique set of articles that set out a cultural-historical approach to outdoor learning and play. It can be read as an alternative to a ‘sheet, pencil and paper’ skills-centred approach to early learning and play. An approach where literacy and numeracy are associated with indoor desk work, even for very young children, seems to have increased worldwide over the years, and we need books like this one to set out alternative narratives of valuable early childhood theorising and practices more in line with sustainable goals and holistic development approaches.

Rewarding it is, therefore, to read a book in which literacy and numeracy are not ignored as such, but rather included in a broader holistic view of child development. With wonderful case studies and interesting results, the authors create new knowledge, vivid images and inspiration for pedagogical practices where cultural formational ideas and design also have a place. The authors also kindly remind us about critical situations for children such as air pollution. Despite knowledge of the outdoors as a beneficial site for young children’s education, the status of outdoor activities varies in and within different cultures for different reasons. With the increasing awareness caused by the pandemic, policymakers and educators have, with this book, got additional food for thought, planning, and acting upon outdoor spaces for children. In dense neighbourhoods, decrease in air pollution is an urgent requisite to reduce health concerns, while both for urban and rural areas, the outdoor learning and play will give richness and prosperity to children.

The book makes it possible to see more clearly how early years education is not only culturally and historically conditioned, but also conditioned by the availability of nature and outdoor landscapes. The interests in this book highlight the relations and possibilities between humans and their environment, and place-based play and learning. It contributes to my understanding of how humans interact, play, and learn within outdoor spaces and on local places, and how both cultural and natural conditions constitute the content of kindergarten activity. The ideas and manifestations inspire me to think about the possibilities and richness to be found in outdoor education. When children are given access to diverse landscapes, biodiversity and various sensory and bodily experiences, we can hope they also acquire attention, curiosity and care for their relations and environment, and thereby build bodies and minds that can cope in current and future crises.

Director of KINDknow Research Centre, Elin Eriksen Ødegaard Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway

Acknowledgments

Funded by Western Norway University of Applied Sciences.

We acknowledge support from The Research Council of Norway; Kindergarten Knowledge Centre for Systemic Research on Diversity and Sustainable Futures (KINDknow) (project code 275575); Western Norway University of Applied Sciences; VIA University College, Denmark; and The University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

Contents

1 Outdoors and Nature in Pedagogical Practices

Liv Torunn Grindheim, Hanne Værum Sørensen, and Angela Rekers

Avis Ridgway, Gloria Quiñones, and Liang Li

Chapter 1 A) Outdoors and Nature in Pedagogical get Practices and in Cultural Historical Theory

Liv Torunn Grindheim @, Hanne Værum Sørensen ©, and Angela Rekers ©

Abstract Despite the increasing awareness of the outdoors as a beneficial site for young children’s education, the status of outdoor activities varies in and within different cultures. Aiming to broaden and challenge presupposed understandings of education and care in the outdoors, we consider the empirical findings from all the chapters in this volume in order to identify a range of conditions for cultural formation in outdoor practices both within and between different cultures. Building on Mariane Hedegaard’s approach to cultural historical theory and Ødegaard and Krüger’s approach to cultural formation, our analysis is performed by identifying conflicts and alignments between the values and motive orientations of the individual and those interpreted from the contextual conditions and demands of institutions and society, particularly in relation to the perception of nature. In doing so, we depict how culture and nature are interrelated from a socio-cultural perspective, and argue that perceptions of nature shaped by institutions and society play a significant role creating conditions for cultural formation. The opportunity for play, learning and cultural formation in nature appears rich within all the represented cultural spaces described in this volume, although whether these opportunities are supported consistently within wider mainstream culture is regarded as an area of tension in some chapters. Based upon our analysis, we suggest that both pedagogical practices

KINDknow Kindergarten Knowledge Centre for Systemic Research on Diversity and Sustainable Futures, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway e-mail: Itg@hvl.no; Liv.Torunn.Grindheim @hv1.no

H. V. Sørensen VIA University College, Aarhus, Denmark e-mail: hsor@via.dk

A. Rekers

Institute of Education and Humanities, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Carmarthen, UK

e-mail: rekerspower @ yahoo.co.uk

© The Author(s) 2021 1 L. T. Grindheim et al. (eds.), Outdoor Learning and Play,

International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education and Development 34, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72595-2_1 and cultural historical theory need to take the outdoors and nature into consideration when emphasising pedagogical practices for children’s play, learning and cultural formation.

Keywords Cultural formation - Cultural- historical theory - Early childhood education and care - Outdoors - Nature

1.1 Introduction

The status of outdoor activities in educational practices like Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) varies within and between cultures and countries; in some, outdoor activities are highly emphasised, whereas in others, outdoor activities have limited importance and/or fewer opportunities are provided. In Scandinavian countries, for example, outdoor activities are central to the everyday lives of young children and are promoted across the institutions of the home, ECEC and nature kindergartens as important for children’s health, well-being, learning and development (Aasen, Grindheim, & Waters, 2009; Sandseter & Kennair, 2011; Sørensen, 2013). In countries such as China, however, which has high levels of pollution, children are not encouraged to be outdoors for lengthy periods (Birkeland & Sørensen, 2021). We aim to broaden and challenge existing understandings of outdoor provision by presenting this collection of research on the outdoor environment as an arena for cultural formation through outdoor and environmental education activities. The content of this chapter is, therefore, structured around the research question: What conditions for cultural formation through outdoor and environmental education activities can be traced in practices both within and between different cultures?

We build on a cultural historical approach, understanding children’s activity as embedded in the culture of which children are a part; thus, play in outdoor spaces or activities using natural materials is also seen as cultivated. The elaborated knowledge from the chapters draws upon empirical examples from Australian, Chinese, Brazilian, Welsh, Norwegian and Polish cultures. The main aim is to identify a variety of possibilities or obstacles that the outdoor context represents as a condition of children’s activity, thereby contributing to broadening the understanding of educational politics and educational practices in ECEC. Our analysis depicts that both possibilities and obstacles point to more than the outdoor environment itself. Individuals as well as institutions, presented here as teachers, parents or grandparents, ECEC settings as well as the institutional values embodied in the training of educators, are shaped by cultural values, expectations and demands. Thus, they have the potential to create possibilities and opportunities for children’s development in outdoor spaces or to constrain possibilities. We, therefore, surface how cultural formation shapes perceptions of nature and subsequent opportunities for young children’s development in the outdoors.

1 Outdoors and Nature in Pedagogical Practices and in Cultural Historical Theory 3 1.2 Theoretical Approach

Our theoretical and epistemic framework begins with Vygotsky’s (2016) and Hedegaard’s (2009, 2020) understandings of children as active agents at the core of learning and cultural formation. Children’s learning and cultural formation is seen as contextualised, situated, mediated and embedded in their given cultural context. Children’s development is seen as dynamic, in dialectical reciprocity with societal conditions (Hedegaard, 2009). Hedegaard (2020) argues that if researchers only study children’s development by considering ‘a fixed sequence of developmental stages’, it is difficult to capture ‘the diversity that is connected with cultural traditions in different societal institutions’ (p. 2). Hedegaard and other researchers employing cultural historical perspectives have criticized research approaches that study child development without consideration of the individual as a participant in dialectical life contexts, thereby neglecting the cultural-historical conditions for children’s development. Hedegaard (2009) argues that ‘demands for a scientific approach have led to several one-dimensional conceptions of development, where the focus has been on the development of different psychological functions and competencies’ (p. 64) with little regard for the participation of the child in activity settings shaped by cultural content. In line with sociologists and anthropologists (Corsaro, 1997; James, Jenks, & Prout, 1998; Rogoff, 2003), Hedegaard emphasizes the need to study children localized in time and space, and to take participants’ values and motivations into consideration. Hedegaard (2020) asserts that it is the dialectical relationship between societal and institutional (cultural) values, expectations and demands and the child’s developing motive orientation that contributes to the child’s development within and across institutions in everyday activities and routines called activity settings.

Similarly, Ødegaard and Kriiger’s (2012) concept of cultural formation is understood to be an ‘ever present and continuous process’ (p. 21). Ødegaard and Krüger (2012) present cultural formation as a descriptive concept that portrays the acts of humans in relation to the conditions in their given culture. Both the process (act) and the result of being a part of the activity are embedded in the process of cultural formation. The individual appropriates, negotiates and challenges cultural formation, thus both shaping and being shaped by institutional values and demands. Employing a cultural historical perspective on children’s development and cultural formation in activities, this anthology seeks to expand upon the cultural-historical tradition of studying children in classroom and home activities to consider children’s cultural formation in outdoor spaces or in sustainability practices. In line with Vygotskian theory and Winther-Lindqvist (2019), the authors in this volume see children’s development as the result of a complicated interplay between the agentic child and their environment, which, we argue, includes the socio-material affordances provided both in- and out-of-doors in early childhood provision (Rekers-Power, 2020).

The arena for cultural formation in this anthology is predominantly the outdoor environment, which ranges from urban spaces to woodlands to gardens outside the home. These areas vary in forms and conditions for cultural formation in and within cultures and countries. We, therefore, take into account that even if children have access to outdoor activities, how, where and in what forms this may be accessed, differs. In addition to cultural — and subcultural — differences, the situation, the artefacts involved, the relations among the participants and the institutional values and demands also influence children’s outdoor play. Thus, children’s activities are culturally and situationally constructed, and children are both co-constructers and reconstructers when exploring their social, cultural and material environments.

1.3 Methodological Approach

To trace conditions for cultural formation within and between different cultures presented in this volume, we present analysis of the activities and findings presented in each chapter to consider cultural formation as an always present, ongoing process, involving both non-human and human actors. We build our analysis on Hedegaard’s (2009) model for analysing the interconnection between children’s activities/routines (activity settings) and the values, expectations, demands and motive orientations at the personal, institutional and societal perspectives, as illustrated in Fig. 1.1. This interconnectivity provides the basis for cultural formation.

The natural world or outdoor environment is not an explicit part of Hedegaard’s model. Since the context for the activities in this book focus upon use of the outdoors or education about the outdoors, we elaborate her model by including the perception of nature as an overall contextual perspective in line with culture, as illustrated in Fig. 1.2.

Society State _ o

Cultural tradition I Cultural tradition Il Cultural tradition III

Home Daycare School practice practice practice

Activity setting | Activity setting Activity setting | Activity setting

Institution

Motives Competences

Person Individual

Fig. 1.1 Illustration of the relations between society-practice and persons with cultural traditions and activity settings as mediating links. (Redesigned from Hedegaard, 2009, p. 73)

1 Outdoors and Nature in Pedagogical Practices and in Cultural Historical Theory 5

Nature Culture

Society State oo a Cultural tradition I Cultural tradition Il Cultural tradition Ill

Home Daycare School practice practice practice

Activity setting | Activity setting | Activity setting ) Activity setting

Motives Competences

Institution

Person Individual

Culture Nature

Fig. 1.2 Illustration of the relations between children as active agents and participants in different societies and institutions in dialectic relations with nature and culture

In line with cultural historical theory to date, Hedegaard does not formulate explicitly how non-human nature is perceived as part of her person-institutionsociety model (Fig. 1.1). Therefore, we see an opportunity for drawing out the socio-material interactions as well as the sociocultural intentions in early childhood practices that focus on nature or those that take place outdoors. In this chapter, we begin by surfacing conceptualisation of nature as embedded in all three perspectives of Hedegaard’s original model. From the individual perspective, we regard humans as biologically as well as culturally constructed. From the institutional perspective, valuing nature is in the pedagogical or family practices with traditions for and prioritizing of outdoor activities and environmental education. From a societal perspective, we consider values that assert the positive influence of nature and outdoor activities on children’s health, wellbeing, learning and development, as well as belief systems that regard nature as dangerous or dirty, not for girls, or not suitable for schoolchildren. These contradictions surface tensions and conflicts between the expectations for teachers to take children outdoors for play and demands about children’s safety, learning and development that are embedded in the given culture.

The elaborated model (Fig. 1.2) frames our analysis. We look for conflict and alignments between the values, motives and competences of the individuals and the contextual conditions and demands in the perspectives of persons, institutions, society to include the perception of nature as a condition for cultural formation (Grindheim, 2020). These conflicts or alignments surface the conditions for cultural formation arising from the activities that are presented in each chapter in this book. Thus, assertions from all the chapters form a part of the analysis in this chapter. The ways the involved participants deal with these conflicts or alignments are understood as ways of exploring and interpreting the individual’s motive orientations together with conditions and demands in their institutional, societal, cultural and natural context.

1.4 Analysis and the Depicted Conditions

We consider each chapter, in order to trace conditions for children’s cultural formation through outdoor activities within and between different cultures. We commence with the chapters that focus on babies and toddlers and the chapters concerning children from 3 to 6 years old in early childhood education and care settings. We then discuss those chapters that focus on children involved in family activities, and end our analysis with the chapters that consider early childhood teacher training and education. These chapters highlight the dynamic interplay between individual, institutional and societal values, expectations and demands that shape children’s play, learning and cultural formation in outdoor activities.

In Chap. 2, Ridgway, Quifiones and Li investigate the activity of three toddlers engaging with the material and social affordances of the activity settings: playing hide and seek, imaginative engagements around a fairy door in a three, finding and imitating a snail, and doing tai-chi. In this chapter, the children are viewed as explorers and active participants in their cultural formation, while exploring and engaging with their family relations and family heritages, their local cultural and natural spaces. The authors trace social and material conditions by discussing the adults’ involvement and values, societal influences such as the parks and backyards themselves, and the human and non-human materials encountered by the children.

In the personal perspective there appears to be an alignment between the child’s motives and competences and the conditions and demands of the activity setting, as each child appropriates the conditions created by the family activities in which they participate. The children’s embodied motivations and participation are supported and valued by their parents’ and their grandparents’ warm understanding and positive attitude. In the institutional perspective, here represented by home/family, the support from parents and grandparents creates conditions in which the motives of

1 Outdoors and Nature in Pedagogical Practices and in Cultural Historical Theory 7 the children to be exploratory, playful, and imaginative co-collaborators may be seen as aligning with their parents and grandparents’ motive orientation and ideas of what is important for their future life.

Similarly, in the societal perspective these motive orientations appear to be in alignment with those of the wider society in which they live, through which conditions for their participation has been shaped. For instance, the public parks encourage the practice of tai chi and also provide foliage for imaginative interactions and explorations around the fairy door in the tree. Also, the societal values may be seen in the neighborhoods in which the families live, enabling the children to explore the family garden and home renovation project in the semi-rural community. The perception of nature, as interpreted in the individual, institution and societal perspectives, is visible in the supportive social and material affordances of in the cultivated spaces of parks, and family- and community gardens. These spaces offer natural affordances of the grassy tussock, mulberries and insects, in addition to those opportunities that are more cultivated. In these outdoor activity settings, which are shaped by the natural, societal and familial conditions, the development of children’s imaginative and exploratory play is encouraged.

1.4.2 Providing Outdoor Experiences for Infants and Toddlers: Pedagogical Possibilities and Challenges from a Brazilian Early Education Center Case Study

In Chap. 3, Costa, Rossetti-Ferreira and Mello investigate babies and toddlers’ activities in an ECEC institution in Brazil, located on a former farm on the outskirts of a city in São Paulo. The authors discuss outdoor activity in both the outdoor spaces that are attached to the child-care complex, providing possibilities to move between the indoors and outdoors, and the wider outdoor areas a short distance from the building. The authors consider these spaces, some of which provide opportunity for the children to move autonomously from the indoors to the outdoors, in terms of socio-spatial practices (Rutanen, 2012). The empirical material and its analysis find few conflicts in the personal and institutional perspectives.

In the personal perspective, there appear to be alignments between children’s motives and competences and the teacher’s providing of conditions and demands, demonstrated by the teachers providing play materials and spatial access to outdoor spaces. Also, the staff were directing the infants’ attention toward nature and the outdoor affordances for exploration in alignments to children’s increasing walking onset and motor development, which provided an expanded range of opportunities for the children than the indoors on its own could provide. There also appear to be alignments between the parents’ motives and competences for taking care and being involved with their child outdoors and the conditions and the demands represented by the daily routines and spaces for one-to one interactions between a parent and a child. As parents’ use of the outdoors increased, so was their own relationship with nature enhanced.

In the institutional perspective, there appear to be alignments between motives among the staff and parents in this study that support access to embodied exploration and access to nature, demonstrated by the way the ECEC institution organises their daily practices involving children and parents to engage physically and sensory with the outdoors. This is presented as a contrast to many ECEC providers who are driven by demands for adult-centred provision with a focus on cognitive development, thus devaluing such outdoor provision.

Similarly, the perspective of society and the perception of nature as valued by the individuals and the institution are in conflict. The conditions and motivations traced from Brazil’s intense industrial and urban sprawl, and the inequity in income that condition the upper class to colonize the few green areas available, form a conflicting contrast to motivations and conditions for young children’s access to outdoor spaces. Although there is an expressed intention for outdoor activity in general, the lack of funding for infrastructure and maintenance limits the ability of ECEC institutions to provide quality outdoor experiences. Thus, young children’s rights, motivations for bodily explorations and access to outdoor areas seem in conflict with political agendas.

Children are identified as active participants in their everyday life, through bodily interrelations with the staff, their parents, the artefacts, projects and nature that provide opportunities for a range of activities to emerge in alignment with their increasing skills. Thus, Costa, Rossetti-Ferreira and Mello point to how adults can be supportive of children’s initiative and engagement in outdoor environments. From the alignments and conflicts presented above, the socio-material opportunities created by the childcare setting and staff provide crucial conditions for the outdoors as an arena for cultural formation in this example.

1.4.3 Princesses (Don’t) Run in the Mud. Tracing Child’s Perspectives in Parental Perception of Cultural Formation Through Outdoor Activities in Norwegian ECEC S

In Chap. 4, Sadownik investigates children’s outdoor activities in ECEC' as a condition for children’s cultural gender formation that may challenge parental values and cultural heteronormativity. The activity settings described in this chapter take place in a Norwegian ECEC and are discussed by Polish parents that are immigrants in Norway. In personal perspectives, the values and motives of the Polish parents represent both gender-traditional perspectives and gender-liberal perspectives, although their former societal perspectives are more closely aligned with a gender-traditional approach; these tensions are surfaced in the interviews. Thus, in considering the institutional perspectives, there seems to be a conflict between the values of

'ECEC institutions in Norway are for children from 1 to 6 years old.

1 Outdoors and Nature in Pedagogical Practices and in Cultural Historical Theory 9 gender-traditional homes, and the values, motives, conditions and demands to promote equity among genders in Norwegian ECEC institutions. The values of the gender-traditional parents were, therefore, in conflict with the institutional values and expectations, as well as with their children’s and the ECEC staff perspectives. So, too, did these parents consider cultural formation to be the sole responsibility for the adults, thus negating the motive orientation of the children themselves. This authoritarian view about upbringing presents a challenge to one of the fathers with gender-traditional expectations who eventually is able to consider the perspective of his daughter as a future companion on camping trips in the wilderness, something he himself enjoys. Subsequently, there is a conflict between the father’s perception of his culture’s gender-traditional demands and his personal motivations for spending more interesting time with his daughter: he admits he would rather go camping with her than go shopping. This surfaces a conflict between the father’s motive orientations for his daughter’s future and the daughter’s own motive orientation for being a ‘wild’, nontraditional-gendered girl.

Sadownik suggests that looking at outdoor activities involving specific persons (the father and his daughter) in a specific activity (outdoor activities), brings the personal perspectives to the fore, and surfaces (perhaps conflicting) value positions. This impacts upon the individual’s interpretation of institutional demands for outdoor activity involvement which is non-gendered, as well as coming closer the child’s perspectives. This exemplify how children develop across institutions and that moments of conflict help us to interpret the child’s perspective. We also interpret the perception of nature as a strong actor for challenging traditional understanding of gender. The outdoors is more accepted as arena for cultivating masculinity by the gender-traditional parents; yet, the outdoors is considered an arena for gender equity in the Norwegian contemporary approach. Thus, the use of the outdoors in ECEC informs the conditions for cultural formation that challenge heteronormativity.

Children’s perspectives are considered as actively challenging their parent’s heteronormative views; simultaneously, ECEC and cultural values and motivations are important conditions for children’s subjectivity. Cultural formation is mapped as a process of intersubjectivity. Both personal perspectives and institutional perspectives relating to outdoor activities are highlighted as conditions for challenging heteronormativity in cooperation with parents in ECEC.

1.4.4 Children’s Play and Social Relations in Nature and Kindergarten Playground: Examples from Norway

In Chap. 5, Sørensen investigates the conditions and demands for one 4-year-old child’s interactions with peers, during outdoor play in the fenced playground and outdoor play in nature. In personal perspectives, the child’s values and motives are to join in and play with peers in both the playground and the natural environment — a less cultivated space. In institutional perspectives the child’s motivation is in line with the condition that the teacher-child ratio is higher in nature compared to the playground, thus teachers are better able to observe and interact if a child is struggling to join in with peers. Although the teachers may be equally motivated and engaged whether they supervise a larger group/number of children on the playground or in a natural environment, the conditions in natural environment allowed the teachers to join into children’s play and activity. Similarly, this chapter’s findings demonstrated that the developmental goals for outdoor playtime on playground differ from the goals in nature. On the playground, the goals were geared towards independent play in larger groups and becoming accustomed to outdoor life, rather than experiencing risky play and teacher involvement in conversations with the children, as observed in the more natural setting.

In the societal perspective, the adult motivation and involvement with the children in the nature setting particularly align with the societal expectations for outdoor activities in nature that stimulate nature connection, since attachment to nature is considered a cultural phenomenon in Norway. This cultural phenomenon is in alignment with this ECEC’s institutional profile that obligated them to spend the major part of their day outdoors, either in nature or in the playground. In the perception of nature, the conditions of the natural environment are shown to be more open, in terms of space, weather and the natural elements. These conditions are valued within the individual, institutional, societal perspectives; and, the perception of nature aligns with the child’s motivations and competences.

Sørensen outlines how the conditions and demands in the nature setting formed the possibility for the involved child to create an imaginative play scenario that included more children who wanted to join in with his imaginative scenario. Children’s involvement in imaginative, explorative play and adult engagement in children’s play align with the teacher’s motivations both in the playground and in the nature-setting, but this motivation faces more conflicts when confronted with the conditions and demands in the playground. The child’s experiences in the playground and in nature are compared in order to demonstrate how the child’s efforts to be involved in play on the playground fail; however, the conditions of the nature setting, which include more actively engaged teaching staff as well as natural materials, provided enhanced opportunities for the child to be more successful in his attempts to be an active agent in peer play, learning and cultural formation.

1.4.5 Utilisation and Design of Kindergarten Outdoor Spaces and Outdoor Activities

In Chap. 6, He and Meng outline and discuss children’s outdoor activities using different terrains and materials situated in kindergartens, in Bergen, Norway and in Anji, China. This chapter points to terrain and material for play, as well as societal and cultural differences in relation to education for young children that form