Nov 01, 2026
A walk outside with a young child rarely follows the route you expected. There are leaves to collect, puddles that need careful investigation, stones that are apparently too important to leave behind, and insects that can stop the whole journey for several minutes. That is part of what makes outdoor exploration so valuable. Young children don't need an elaborate nature activity to start discovering the world around them. Often, they need time, space, and an adult willing to notice things alongside them.
Outdoor exploration means giving children opportunities to investigate the world outside through their senses, movement, questions, and play. It can happen in a nursery garden, a park, woodland, an allotment, on the beach, on the walk home, or around a few pots on a balcony.
Children might notice patterns on a leaf, hear a bird, climb over a log, watch water travel downhill, collect natural objects, or wonder why their shadow keeps moving. These first-hand experiences help children learn about the natural world and support Understanding the World, one of the seven areas of learning and development within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).
Outside, children can see, touch, hear, and test ideas for themselves. A puddle introduces depth, movement, reflection, and cause and effect. A pile of leaves offers colour, number, texture, shape, sound, and imaginative play.
Outdoor exploration can support children’s confidence, physical development, language, social skills, curiosity, problem-solving, and wellbeing. It also gives children room to follow an idea for longer, adapt what they are doing, and learn through real experiences.
We explore these developmental outcomes in more detail in our guide to the benefits of outdoor learning in the early years. This article focuses instead on simple ways to help toddlers and pre-school children explore nature for themselves.
Nature offers plenty to notice without extra equipment. Try a simple sensory hunt and look for things that feel smooth, rough, bumpy, soft, wet, or dry.
Children could compare tree bark, grass, stones, leaves, mud, or other safe natural materials. Introduce words naturally as you explore: “This bark feels rough. Does the other tree feel the same?”
You can explore sound too. Stop somewhere safe and listen. Can you hear birds, leaves, rain, traffic, people talking, or a plane overhead? Quiet observation gives children a different way to engage with a familiar place.
November is a lovely time to notice how the world is changing. Look for different leaf colours, bare branches, evergreen trees, rain, wind, berries, mushrooms, seeds, and changes in daylight.
Try asking:
Revisiting the same place throughout the year helps children notice that nature is always changing.
Outdoor exploration should always suit a child’s age and stage of development, with appropriate adult supervision. Encourage children to observe nature without disturbing it, and check natural materials carefully before using them. Children should never taste unknown plants, berries, or mushrooms, and adults should keep small objects that could pose a choking risk out of reach.
Look underneath fallen leaves, around plants, or near logs for insects and other small creatures. Rather than collecting them, encourage children to observe carefully.
How many legs can they see? How does it move? Where might it be going? What happens when you move away and give it some space? A magnifying glass can make the smallest discovery feel enormous.
These moments are also a gentle way to talk about caring for living things and leaving habitats as we found them.
Explore puddles, water and weather
Rain changes the outdoor environment, which means it creates new things to investigate. You may find puddles, reflections, water trails, darker tree bark, wet leaves, worms, dripping surfaces, and different sounds.
Try dropping a leaf onto a puddle and see whether it floats. Watch where water travels after rain. Use suitable containers to pour and transport water, or compare shallow and deep puddles.
Children are beginning to explore ideas about volume, movement, prediction, and cause and effect without needing those formal terms.
Choose safe locations away from traffic, and avoid water that may be contaminated, ensuring activities suit the children’s ages and abilities.
Where appropriate, collect a small number of fallen natural objects such as leaves, sticks, seed cases, or stones. Back at home or nursery, children could:
Leave living plants, flowers, and wildlife where they belong unless you know they can be collected responsibly.
Natural spaces invite different kinds of movement. A child may squat to inspect a beetle, stretch to reach a leaf, balance on uneven ground, carry sticks, jump over a puddle, or walk up a hill.
These everyday movements help children build strength, balance, coordination, and body awareness. UK physical activity guidance for children under five recommends that children aged one to five years old are physically active for at least 180 minutes across the day, with active play contributing to that time.
The aim is not to turn every nature walk into exercise. It is simply another reason to give children plenty of opportunities to move in ways that feel playful and purposeful.
Not at all. Nature can be found in surprisingly small spaces. Look for weeds growing between paving stones, birds on rooftops, clouds changing shape, rain running along a kerb, or leaves gathering at the edge of a pavement.
A trip to a park or green space can create more opportunities, but curiosity can begin almost anywhere. The most important ingredient is time to stop and notice.
Cold, rain, and wind can all change what children notice outdoors. Suitable clothing makes a big difference. Waterproof coats, wellies, warm layers, and spare clothes can help children explore comfortably when conditions are safe.
There will also be times when weather means plans need to change. Outdoor exploration should always respond to conditions and to individual children’s needs, comfort, and safety.
Outdoor exploration can connect naturally with every area of the EYFS. A child searching for autumn leaves might learn new words as they describe them, count how many they find, compare size and shape, move across different ground, take turns with a friend, create a picture, and learn why leaves change.
From a child’s point of view, learning doesn’t have to be separated into subjects. One interesting discovery can lead almost anywhere.
Through Wonderful World, part of our All Aboard Approach, we encourage the children to discover their surroundings, learn about the natural world, and begin to understand how they can care for it.
The Nature Explorers aspect invites children to notice, investigate, and ask questions about what they find. Planet Protectors builds on that connection by helping children understand simple ways to look after their environment.
For families interested in more regular nature-based learning, our guide to what Forest School means in the early years explains how Forest School differs from general outdoor play, while our Forest School Enhancement shows how selected nurseries bring this approach to life.
See outdoor exploration in action
At The Old Station Nursery Forest School Devizes, we weave outdoor learning into nursery life through woodland, meadow, gardens, allotments, wildlife, and Forest School. At The Old Station Nursery Little Houghton, the children regularly explore the local park and Scout’s Field, noticing wildlife and using natural resources in their play.
No two outdoor spaces need to look the same. What matters is giving the children regular opportunities to notice, explore, move, ask questions, and discover what is around them.
Find your nearest nursery and discover the outdoor experiences available there.