As a parent or educator working with young children, you’ve likely spent many moments watching them embrace the freedom of the great outdoors - the classroom without walls, a space with fewer restrictions on noise and movement. It’s where children laugh, call out to friends, and sing with joy to their hearts’ content.

You may even remember the best moments of your own childhood being those spent surrounded by nature, free from adult direction and wrapped in the joy of exploration with friends or family. Tall trees invited you to climb, puddles waited to be splashed, and when you finally jumped, you watched the ripples travel outwards in quiet serenity. You listened to leaves dancing in the wind or felt the thrill of sliding through mud - an experience that awakened the all‑important vestibular sense, the system responsible for the body’s awareness of movement.

Today, however, the world is very different from the one many of us grew up in. Instead of long, carefree hours outdoors - climbing, digging for worms, getting gloriously muddy, and engaging in healthy risk-taking - many children now spend significantly more time in fast‑paced digital environments. Modern life brings increased concerns around safety, busier routines, and a culture of fear that can unintentionally limit children’s natural curiosity, physical exploration and freedom to play.

Why Physical Activity Outdoors Matters

According to the UK Chief Medical Officers’ Physical Activity Guidelines (Department of Health & Social Care, 2019), infants and young children aged one to five should engage in at least 180 minutes of physical activity each day, ideally including outdoor play. For preschool children, it is advised they take part in at least 60 minutes of this time engaged in moderate to vigorous activity, that has even greater benefits when exceeded. 

Increased activity supports:

• mental health
• cardiovascular fitness
• healthy weight
• long-term physical and cognitive development

The Early Years Physical Activity Guidelines further highlight the importance of offering a broad range of movement opportunities for children under five. Such experiences help build social skills and relationships, builds healthy brains, improves sleep, and strengthen muscles, bones, coordination, and overall motor skills (Department of Health & Social Care, 2020). The Early Years Alliance also stresses the benefits of physical activity for children's self-esteem, helps to reduce anxiety, and lowers stress levels.

Despite children spending fewer hours outdoors today, research continues to show that natural green spaces boost emotional wellbeing, reduce stress, improves focus, and encourages developing healthy risk-taking - all essential for building resilience, creativity, confidence, and physical skills (UNICEF, 2021).

Outdoor Play: Good for Children, Good for All

With rising concerns about children’s mental health, it is more important than ever to value and prioritise outdoor play. Time outside benefits not only children but also the adults who care for them. By showing enthusiasm and positivity for being outdoors - joining in with play, exploring wildlife, gardening, or simply noticing nature - adults model a healthy connection with the natural world – teaching healthy life-time habits from the start!

Gardening: Hands-On, Physical, Meaningful and Mindful

Gardening is a fantastic way for children to be physically active while developing a deeper connection with nature. It can be done at very little cost and offers opportunities to learn about growth and change while developing care and concern about the world and its inhabitants. Activities such as digging, planting, raking, weeding, and carrying watering cans strengthen muscles and coordination while nurturing a love for the natural world. These experiences support both positive mental and physical health - healthy body, healthy mind. Sunlight also plays a valuable role. It is one of the best natural sources of vitamin D, which helps regulate calcium and phosphate for strong bones, teeth, and muscles. Vitamin D also boosts the production of serotonin - a key chemical for emotional balance, memory, concentration – and happiness! The Early Years Alliance highlights how outdoor play naturally supports healthy access to sunlight.

Mud, Mess, and Mental Health

Beyond gardening, many sensory-rich outdoor experiences help support children’s physical and emotional wellbeing and mud play is one which is most valuable.

While some adults worry about dirt, research shows that soil can actually support children’s mental health and immunity. Mud kitchens, for example, can be created affordably at home or in a setting using simple tools such as pots, pans, utensils, recipe books (to support literacy), and plenty of soil and water. Additional natural ingredients can be introduced such as bark, sawdust, vegetable peelings, gravel, chalk, charcoal and water (coloured with natural food colouring so not to cause harm to the environment).

Bug and insect finding also encourage children to engage with soil as they dig and search through natural terrain. These activities spark communication and language development, and joyful shared experiences - all of which contribute to children releasing vital happy hormones. There is so much joy to be found in a muddy puddle or a slippery, muddy slope, where children can experience fun, awe, and wonder as they splash to their hearts’ content and glide down the slope with exhilarating speed, creating truly thrilling play experiences.

Soil contains a microbe called Mycobacterium vaccae, which has been shown to stimulate the production of serotonin in the brain, producing effects similar to those of modern antidepressants. These microbes may help improve mood, reduce stress, and even enhance cognitive functioning (Soil Microbes and Human Health – Gardening Know How).

Exposure to dirt can also support healthy immune development. As Du Toit (2015) states, the immune system, like any muscle, needs regular “training” to develop resilience. While we wouldn’t actively promote children eating dirt, providing sensory opportunities to explore mud in all its textures - sticky, slimy, squelchy, grainy or firm - supports creativity, immunity, and physical development through sensory exploration, making mud cakes, moulds, and other imaginative potions.

Natural outdoor environments also help children to strengthen their immune systems as they encounter beneficial, what BBC Future (2022) describe as, “old friend” microbes that our bodies evolved when spending valuable time in nature. With reduced outdoor play in many urban environments, children may miss out on this important immune support.

For ideas and inspiration, Muddy Faces offers many free mud‑play activities and downloadable resources (Mud activity ideas & free downloads | Mud | Muddy Faces)

At Acorn, we prioritise outdoor learning as an essential part of our ethos and daily provision. Children have free-flow access to outdoor spaces whatever the weather, all year round which is vital for promoting holistic development as children learn about the changes through seasons, natural processes and exploration through first hand experiences.

Chloe, one of Acorns’ deputy managers, summarises it beautifully after observing children embracing outdoor play:
“It’s amazing how different children are when they are in a natural environment.”
She described how visibly happier the children are when they play outside.

References

Department of Health & Social Care (2019). UK Chief Medical Officers’ Physical Activity Guidelines.
Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d839543ed915d52428dc134/uk-chief-medical-officers-physical-activity-guidelines.pdf

Department of Health & Social Care (2020). Physical Activity for Early Years: Birth to 5 Years – Text of the Infographic.
Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/physical-activity-guidelines-early-years-under-5s/physical-activity-for-early-years-birth-to-5-years-text-of-the-infographic

UNICEF (2021). The Importance of Outdoor Play and How to Support It.
Available at: https://www.unicef.org/eca/stories/importance-outdoor-play-and-how-support-it

Early Years Alliance The Benefits of Outdoor Play in the Early Years.
Available at: https://www.eyalliance.org.uk/news-events/blogs/benefits-outdoor-play-early-years/

Muddy Faces (n.d.). Mud Activities.
Available at: https://muddyfaces.co.uk/outdoor-hub/mud/mud-activities

Bloomfield, C. (2024). Antidepressant Microbes in Soil: How Dirt Makes You Happy.
Available at: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil-fertilizers/antidepressant-microbes-soil.htm

Du Toit, A. (2015). Dirt Is Not Dirty – How Playing in the Dirt Benefits the Immune System.
Available at: https://wakeup-world.com/2015/03/08/dirt-is-not-dirty-how-playing-in-the-dirt-benefits-the-immune-system/

BBC Future (2022). How Outdoor Play Boosts Kids’ Immune Systems.
Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20220929-how-outdoor-play-boosts-kids-immune-systems