Nature Play Schema: Building Blocks for Crucial Brain Development

By Katherine Dudley and Anna Sharratt

Free Forest School of St. Petersburg, FL. Photo by Elizabeth Fallon.

From birth to age 5, a child’s brain develops more than at any other time in life. In fact, 90% of brain development occurs during this vital period. Babies are born with all the neurons (brain cells) they will have for life; in the early years of life, at least a million new neural connections are made every second. These connections, or synapses, enable a child to think, move, and communicate. Brain connections are built through the experiences a child has in their early years.

The various parts of the brain are connected to different abilities, such as language development, emotion, and movement. As brain development becomes more elaborate, children are increasingly able to engage in more complex tasks. Higher-level skills such as problem solving, communication, and impulse control rely on connections formed during this period of development. If not formed during the first years of life, it becomes much harder to form these connections later.

Two essential components of early brain development are the interactions a young child has with the adults in their life and the stimulation they experience. Caring and responsive relationships with dependable adults lay the groundwork for emotion, communication, and connection. Sensory stimulation and the opportunity to explore the world also nurtures a child’s earliest development.

Play Urges

One way to think about early childhood development is that children have an innate urge to learn and progress. By engaging in exploration and repetitive behaviors, children are building connections between neurons. As you become a close observer of children’s play, you’ll begin to notice the various urges children have in play, and patterns in the types of play each child chooses. For example, one child may sit for many minutes (or hours!) at the edge of a creek, throwing rocks, while another throws three rocks and uses that as a premise for an imaginary play scenario. A child may go through an intensive period of wanting to climb everything in sight that eventually wanes and gives way to another interest.

“Schema” is a term child development experts use to describe the urges kids have when they play — the urge to throw things, the urge to climb, the urge to collect or categorize objects. From a brain development perspective, a child’s urge to engage repeatedly in a particular kind of play can be seen as natural and essential. It starts early; children begin to experiment with these urges as early as their first birthday, if not sooner.

Understanding the concept of play schemas helps to establish context for the learning and development that occurs when children play, and it helps adults cultivate patience for what otherwise may be interpreted as stubborn or difficult behaviors. For example, the child who always wants to “do it myself” when it is time to put shoes on, can frustrate a parent who is short on time. From a developmental perspective, the repetition of this activity is helping the child learn; through this lens, a parent may learn to plan extra time to let the child practice. Or a behavior that may be interpreted as inappropriate, such as throwing rocks toward other children, can be redirected to a safe space in order for the child to pursue their throwing urge in an acceptable manner. Understanding schema helps adults learn to understand and support their child’s development.

Here is a list of some of the most common nature play urges, with examples shown for each:

Orientation

At times, it seems as though a two-year-old’s sole purpose in life is to experiment with orientation. She lays on the ground and looks up. He hangs over the edge of a huge boulder to see what it feels like to be upside down. She climbs to the highest perch she can find; sometimes disregarding her own safety. The human urge to hang upside down, and to physically view the world from different perspectives, is an important piece of getting to know one’s world.

Free Forest School of South Bay, Los Angeles. Photo by Galina Chin

Positioning

Humans — children and adults alike — have a desire for order and positioning. Maybe you’ve seen a child spend several minutes lining up sticks, sorting rocks, or “organizing” a leaf “just so.” Some children may feel the need to create an organized line for taking turns climbing the best tree. By positioning and organizing objects (or themselves), children are developing a sense of sequence, logic, and turn-taking. What better place to develop this schema than in nature.

Free Forest School of New York City. Photo by Yassenia Canty.

Connection

Creating a tower of rocks, building a sandcastle, or constructing a bridge across the creek are all examples of how the connection schema can emerge during nature play. The creation of connections, of tying separate elements together, is often immediately followed by the delighted destruction of that building or connection. Both are essential pieces of learning through play.

Free Forest School of Greater Indianapolis. Photo by Stacy Hauber.

Trajectory

There is something mesmerizing about throwing rocks, leaves and sticks into water. Some young children can stand in virtually the same spot on a riverbank for the better part of an hour, throwing rock after rock after rock. In addition to exploring cause and effect, they are satisfying the urge of trajectory; to throw or drop objects. As they explore trajectory, they experiment with distance, direction, and force. The inevitable variations of loose parts in nature build this schema in complex ways. Trajectory can also involve experimentation with one’s own movement; a certain child might only spend a minute throwing or dropping objects before he climbs to the top of a rock and jumps off.

Free Forest School of Austin. Photo by @what_we_learned_today.

Enclosure/Container

It is the enclosure urge that drives young explorers to squeeze themselves into a small space between two trees, build forts and fences, and stay inside a tiny snow fort for much longer than most adults could tolerate. Through this desire to fill spaces and create enclosures, children are building schema that helps them understand volume and boundaries. Similarly, when we give a child an empty container, it’s only a matter of time before it is filled with treasures: stone, a bug or worm habitat, water, or a mixture of mud, sticks, and leaves, which is proudly presented as “cake.”

Free Forest School of Atlanta. Photo by Ashley Zimmerman.

Transporting

The urge to carry a big load, whether in our hands, arms, or in a backpack or bucket is sometimes about the items, but more so about the act of transporting these from one place to another. At forest school, kids LOVE to carry their own backpacks- (sometimes they never even open them!), and can often be found carrying a ridiculous load of sticks, a giant log, or a pocketful of rocks from one area to their own perfect spot.

Free Forest School of Richmond, VA. Photo by Joy Herod.

Enveloping

A child wraps herself and a friend inside the picnic blanket like a burrito. A toddler gently cups his hands around an earthworm. A little girl excitedly holds a secret treasure behind her back, waiting for the precise guess. These are all examples of the enveloping schema. Peek-a-boo behind a tree or a boulder is an extension of the desire to be hidden, and to reveal.

Free Forest School of Santa Cruz. Photo by Susie McConnell.

Rotation

Many young children have a strong desire to spin or observe spinning objects. A child spins around until she tumbles into the grass, while another kid quietly draws circles in the dirt with a stick. Maybe someone is lucky enough to find the perfect stone that will spin around like a top when given just the right nudge. All of these experiences are building the rotation schema.

Free Forest School of Sacramento.

Transformation

In nature, transformation is happening constantly. But our children have the innate urge to create their own transformations when engaged in unstructured play. What will happen if I dam up this part of the creek? I can make some amazing mud stew with this dirt, sand, and water… but what if I add some leaves and mix it all together with a stick? Budding scientists and chefs flourish in the outdoors.

Free Forest School of Watertown, NY. Photo by Lauren Webb.

Through understanding the individual schema of play in children, we can be more keen observers of our children. Play is critical work; young people are developing neural connections as they engage in unstructured play. Formal instruction from adults is not yet necessary. In fact, children’s brains are not quite ready for much of what adults want to teach them before age seven. Rather, caregivers have the important role of providing a supportive and rich environment for play. The outdoors offers unlimited opportunities for this cognitive development; no expensive or plastic toys needed in the woods. Sometimes we join our children in their play; sharing in their curiosity, sharing comments of observation and wonder, sharing the experience. Other times, we can take a step back, understanding that the innate urges that drive our little humans are building important cognitive connections and a foundation for future learning.

Anna Sharratt at Free Forest School of the Twin Cities.

Anna Sharratt is the founder and Executive Director of Free Forest School. Anna grew up exploring the urban parks of Minneapolis and Minnesota’s north woods. A graduate of Evergreen and longtime educator focused on experiential learning and social change, Anna delights in watching young children discover the natural world. Anna lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two kids, where she can be found taking saunas, knitting, exploring nearby nature, climbing, and volunteering in her kids’ elementary school to bring learning outdoors.

Katherine Dudley at Free Forest School of Durango.

Katherine Dudley is the Free Forest School Blog Manager and Director/Facilitator of her local chapter in Durango, CO. She is a literacy specialist, and spent nine years teaching elementary school before becoming full-time momma with two stick-collecting, mud-loving, boulder-climbing daughters. Katherine, her husband, and girls love to explore the outdoors as a family – on foot, on two wheels, on boats, and sometimes just sitting on a rock or camping chair with a view.