Natural Play
Project Officer - Tony Martin
Yorkshire Wildlife Trust are working to improve the quality of play and free-time opportunities for children and young people by developing sites for Natural Play.
Natural play is a term used to describe the creation of simple play opportunities in the natural environment, it allows children and young people to think freely using their imagination in play and how they use the space.
Why?
- The 2007 Unicef report on the well-being of children in 21 of the world’s richest countries ranked the UK at the bottom. Play is seen as one of the most important factors to improve this.
- There has been an increase in obesity and anti-social behaviour in children. Play is an important part of a child’s development and can provide mental and physical stimulation.
- Growing research is providing evidence of the benefits of natural play for children’s physical and mental well-being. In these environments children can experience the challenges of life and develop the real skills and abilities to assess risk.
How?
Natural Play is a sustainable process. Using natural materials and living plants the space is continuously changing: As plants and tress mature and change over time a natural play site in winter will feel very different to one in the summer.
The materials that are used are either very hard wearing such as granite or decomposable such as logs. The planting will improve over the years and replace the older trees and shrubs on site.
Play is about being free to be creative, experience new things, share, observe, copy, act out, build, change, destroy, pretend, explore and take risks, hide, run, jump, swing, balance, climb, sit, talk and have fun. Natural play ticks all the boxes!
And it’s not just for the young, any age or ability can be involved with natural play!
Where can I find a project?
