Our environments are responsive to Children’s Interests, providing them with opportunities to foster further learning and engagement.
Our environments.
Our Physical Play Environments
Playgrounds are an important space for children to learn and develop through exploring their interests, developing dispositions for risk taking and becoming confident and independent learns in individual and social contexts.
Sky Tree Kids has three (3) outdoor play yards. Two being natural environments with the third being a ‘splash yard’ where children have opportunities to play with elements of water in summer months and enjoy other outdoor activities which are set up in colder months. All children have access to our ‘splash yard’.
Our natural play yards are natural! They have real grass, an abundance of plants and flowers, soft fall bark, sand pits and a mud kitchen. The play yards are designed to be suitable for different ages and development needs of children in our care. Children from our Greenhouse & Terrace Rooms (children 0 – 2 years) share one natural play yard while children in the Courtyard, Atrium & Loft rooms (children 2 – 5 years) share in a different natural play yard.
Children will get dirty while having many opportunities to engage in natural elements, loose parts play and physical exercise and climbing.
Dividing the splash yard and natural play yard for older children is a wall maze. The wall maze is provided to older children to encourage climbing, risk taking and to develop confidence as they explore the wall maze. The natural play yard suitable for the older children has a steep slide to encourage children to learn to manage risks and undertake their own self assessments of risk, all in a safe environment.
As our centre grows, it is part of our Quality Improvement Plan to obtain feedback from families, children and community as to ideas on how to further develop our physical play environments. We are excited to see how much they have changed already with family, child, educator and community input!
Adjoining both natural play yards is a covered deck (in the larger yard) and patio (in the smaller yard), allowing children to also enjoy being outside regardless of whether it is raining.
Educators will set up the play yards with various activities and change those activities. The activities are also moved or removed to also allow for ample space for children to partake in physical exercise through sport classes such as soccer.
As our centre grows, it is part of our Quality Improvement Plan to obtain feedback from families, children and community as to ideas on how to further develop our physical play environments. We are excited to see how much they have changed already with family, child, educator and community input!
Children will also be given opportunities for indoor – outdoor play where educators will open doors to allow children to freely move between indoor and outdoor spaces. Children will be able to make choices whether to engage in activities outside or indoor while under safe supervision conditions. We are thrilled to be able to offer children this option, using the environment as the third teacher and allowing children to enjoy engaging in different environments, activities and enabling them to make choices about their learning.