natural play stuff and its boundries?

[mushpea]

can i ask those of you that have natural stuff in your gardens to play with what you have and how you let the children use it? i dont mean big play stuff more like sand , bark etc,,,, so far i have sand, bark, compost and pepples, do you just let them do what they want with it? do you tell them they cant mix the stuff or do you let them,, do they kart it round the garden in bucketts etc? also i have a toy kitchen in a play house, would you let them 'cook' their creations?
the reason i ask is because they havent seen this stuff yet and i am curious to know what they will do with it but also wondering what boundries i should set and so thought i would find out from you folks what boundries you have,,,, obviously not throwing pepples would be a good start!

[manjay]

Mine do wahtever takes their fancy:D So yes they move it around the garden and they make potions. I don't have a kitchen but you may decide that you don't really want all the stuff being takien in there so that may be one of your boundaries.

My boundaries tend to be ones I impose on myself! Usually as to how involved I get. To me it totally depends on the age and stage of development of the child. If it is a crawler who likes to eat anything then I would have to be very close all of the time. With the older ones I like to take a back seat and let them get on with it. I will sometimes get in there and maybe direct play in one way or another so if for example they were mixing mud I may make my own picture on the floor with some mud to give them some ideas. Or indeed add some more resources to enhance the provision. In a one to one situation it is a great environment to encourage sustained shared thinking and my mindees absolutely love it.

Good luck xxx

[Ripeberry]

I've got a 'nice' toy kitchen for in the house, but the garden playhouse has an old toy kitchen and they can make mud pies or whatever takes their fancy in there.
My boundary is that outside stuff does not come into the house, mud,sand,pebbles ect.

[The Juggler]

anything within reason - as long as I've checked for poo/dead birds etc before they go out:laughing: :laughing:

biggest one is checkign they know difference between digging up my flowers and the digging patches:laughing:

[francinejayne]

Mine love mixing little pebbles in with the sand - it drives me mad, especially when I've just bought lovely new sand!!! I don't stop them though, I would never win that battle! They also love mixing compost in!

My only rules are they must use new compost from the bag which is usually accessible for them - I don't want them getting soil from the flower beds as cats might have pooped in it!

Oh and it all stays outside!!!

[babs]

sand soil etc all stays outdoors mine mix it all up sometimes others fill up buckets and containers and carry it around i went out the other day to find they had cleaned up my garden of all the leaves and i couldnt find where they had put them, i saw them doing this just let them get on with it thorwing leaves over each other rolling in them and today went out to move few things around found all the leaves under the seats of the cars stuffed full they were lol ...