Outdoor Learning Environment
Eltham Woods Childcare Cooperative is located in the middle of the Frank Street Reserve.
We are nestled in amongst gum trees and surrounded by open space. We have two beautiful outdoor learning environments.
Butterfly Outdoor Yard
Our butterfly yard, which is utilised by our 0-2 year old children, is separate to our large yard. This yard is situated on the side of the centre overlooking a natural reserve. The children enjoy watching local residents walk past with their pets and listening to the birds in the trees.
The yard is full of natural elements including natural sensory gardens, a sandpit and a herb garden, the children enjoy exploring these areas. They also enjoy expanding their imagination in the cubby house, climbing up the foam blocks, riding our toddler bikes, constructing with our plentiful selection of construction resources, painting and crafting with our educators and reading a book in the library area.
The butterfly room children spend most of their day out in their outdoor learning environment, they prefer to be out in the natural air exploring their surroundings, on perfect Melbourne weather days we often sleep outside too!
Large Outdoor Yard
Our large outdoor yard is a play space like no other! A large expansive natural play area provides extensive room for children to play, learn, relax and develop whilst engaging all of their senses and developmental domains. The children enjoy every moment in this play space and it is a favourite amongst our educators and families.
Our large outdoor yard is shared by our toddlers and kindergarten children, at times smaller groups of children will utilise the yard providing them with a quiet and calm play area. At other times our children come together in this yard and have the opportunity to play with siblings and friends from different rooms throughout the centre.
Our large outdoor yard is full of natural play elements including a bike track that weaves it’s way through gum trees and native plants, every changing sensory gardens that offer a quiet place to play solitary or with a small group of peers, a large sandpit complete with kitchen and a water pump to get those big muscles working, timber open plan cubby houses that frequently offer new and engaging imaginary play opportunities, edible gardens that the children care for and plant seasonal produce in, a bush tucker garden that provides not only food but also ingredients to add to playdough and other sensory play opportunities, a mud kitchen, an Indigenous garden full of natives that Bunjil looks over and a fairy garden that is situated in a quiet area of the yard amongst the tall gum trees. The outdoor yard also has fixed play structure that provides numerous different play zones for the children to explore and a dual swing frame that offers opportunities for many different swing attachments to be utilised including rope ladders, swings, basket swings, trapeze bars and rope swings. An artificial sports field offers a flat open space where sports and games are enjoyed and a timber decking doubles as a stage where children can play, perform or draw and write on the chalk board that surrounds it.
Due to expansive size of our large outdoor play yard two dedicated outdoor educators program an outdoor plan for this area. This ensures the environment remains engaging and becomes an extension of the children’s indoor learning environment. There is a strong focus on nature-based learning throughout this program.
Eltham Woods Reserve
We regularly utilise the reserve that surrounds our service to provide the children with nature play opportunities and allow them to connect with country. Whether it’s reading a story together on a picnic rug, playing games together, engaging in nature play or simply exploring the reserve the children enjoy the time outside our fence line connecting with nature.
