Money $aving Tips
Let's address foremost some ways to spare your budget as you venture forward:
- Start off small: You may be really excited to implement a lot of the ideas I shared in our first post as well as others of your own or that you've seen in other websites or books. There is a whole world out there to explore and indeed a whole lot of ways to explore it, but you do not need to have everything ready and set up to do so from the get go. Beyond that, introducing an altogether new learning environment with a ton of stuff all at once will likely be overstimulating and ineffective. Decide on two or three things you'd like to start with. Perhaps create a list of immediate, short term and long term goals for items you'd like to include and implement. Set a reasonable budget for purchases and stick to it. Here are some things to consider:
- What are your immediate necessities? Adequate outerwear/protection from the elements might be a number one item on this list. Making sure that everyone is comfortable and safe outdoors can go a long way in getting you all out there and keeping everyone satisfied once you get there.
- Shelf Life: Our first year of having an outdoor play space, I had a few plastic gardening toys, shovels, pails and sand toys, a plastic bin with a lid for sand/sensory play, sidewalk chalk, some bubble tubes and zip ties to hang them from our railing and some larger digging tools and hula hoops purchased from the dollar store or big box store. These lasted one summer season. It was what I could afford that year and they served their purpose, but we had to start pretty much from scratch next season. As I began thinking more in the long term of what would last and survive the elements, I gradually began to incorporate real gardening tools, make our own bubbles and store it in a jug with a spigot, and implement toys and accessories made from stronger materials than cheap plastic. We have a bit of both and sometimes acquiring the more quality items has involved waiting for and seeking sales, putting things on birthday wish-lists or hitting up secondhand shops and consignment sales. I am not rigid here, but it's helpful to consider shelf life as you build and extend your outdoor space.
- Recycle, Reduce, Reuse: What a beautiful and pertinent lesson to extend outdoors as you set up and use your outdoor classroom! One of my most popular nature-based playgroup activities last year was a recycled robot art invitation. I showed up at the park with bags of our recyclables, a smattering of arts and crafts materials from home and let the kids (and adults) have at it. The artwork was amazing, but do you know what was even more amazing? When I observed some kids taking a collection of recycled plastic cups and containers to the water table to play. There was a collection of leftover party cups that reflected the sunlight so beautifully as the children played and filled and poured. Recycled cherry tomato containers became a fought over commodity as water was filled from one end and sprinkled out of holes in the bottom. In a disposable world such as ours, single use plastics are a constant concern and battle. At least when we can't avoid purchasing them and using them, we can give them a second (or third) run...
- Hit up your own recycling bin: cleaned, empty containers make great outdoor toys for sand, mud and water play. They can also be used to make bird feeders, garden art, watering cans, bubble blowers, rain gauges, storage containers and so much more. Even the plastic pots many starter plants come in can be recycled and reused in play by your young botanists.
- Hit up commercial recycling bins: I am not the most outgoing dumpster diver in my neighborhood, but I have connections who are! Local stores have a lot of waste and one person's trash is another one's treasure. If this is your strong suit, ask away! If not, delegate the job to someone else. One of our very favorite "toys" here is a set of hard cardboard tubes a good friend rescued from Costco and donated to the boys (as well as her own preschool). And don't stop at just the standard "garbage" either. Florists and nurseries sometimes dispose of less than perfect flowers and plants--these are still perfect for use in a mud kitchen, science center or nature table!
- Hit up your friends and family for items they may be getting rid of or hoarding in their attics and basements. This can be especially useful in acquiring accessories for a mud kitchen or baskets for storage.
- It's already there! One of the very best things about setting up a classroom outdoors is that everything you need is essentially already there and in abundance. Nature is full of loose parts for play and exploration. Even if you don't have a lot of access to rocks, pine cones, seeds, acorns, chestnuts, leaves, sticks, branches and so forth on your property, these are items that can be scavenged on your next nature walk. Do be mindful not to harm anything living and not to take anything from a preserved land space or private property. But there's no need to buy math manipulatives when you can count acorns. And a sturdy stick makes a perfect tool for mixing up a mud cake or using as a magic wand. Fallen branches can become a beautiful set of tree blocks and larger cross sections of tree trunks make a wonderful stool or garden table. Even paint can be made from natural materials like mud or various flowers and produce; brushes can be made from leaves, sticks and flowers...
- Saving Green--Both In Your Wallet and The Environment: Purchasing or acquiring items secondhand is good for your budget and for the environment. Thrift stores and consignment shops are great places to acquire gently used gardening tools, outerwear, toys and outdoor materials, art supplies, learning materials, nature based books and field guides, baskets, storage containers, picnic blankets and more. And don't forget library sales when building onto your nature based library. We found some incredible field guides, children's books and gardening books at our botanical garden library for sale last year super cheap! Even old gardening magazines can be rescued from someone's recycling bin (or cheaply purchased to support your local library) and used for crafts and play.
- Put it Out There! If you're in the market to collect and acquire something for your outdoor classroom, it can help to put it out there. Let your friends, family and neighbors know that you're looking to collect old dishes for your mud kitchen or recycled containers for planting. Let a friend with a compost pile know if you need compost for your garden (speaking of which, anyone need garden compost??). If you are teaching or working for a center or agency, let parents and families know what you're after and create a wish list. You'd be surprised what may come of it! My favorite gift ever of all time to this day is still a large tree stump donated by a family. (I honestly miss my stump; I left it behind when I stopped teaching for the next teacher to use...)
- Use What You Have on Hand: You don't need to buy separate art and writing supplies, learning materials and toys when setting up your outdoor classroom. You'll find much of what you have and use indoors can be brought outdoors for use as well. Before you even make a list of things you want to purchase, check up with what you already have inside. In our final post, we'll talk more about making items transportable both for ease of travel and storage/space. But there's no reason an outdoor construction site needs a separate collection of toy cars and trucks or that a dinosaur jungle needs all new toy dinosaurs. Most things can be washed and used again indoors. Think outside the box a bit...or rather, just think outside--you don't even need the box!
Space Saving Tips
I will go into depth in my final post on how to create and manage an outdoor classroom on no designated space (say you are a traveling show like my playgroup), but what if you do have an outdoor space but just not much of it? No room? No problem!
- Keep It Simple and Short in Stature: Small people don't need large spaces. You also don't need large objects in spaces for small people. Smaller people sit in smaller chairs, stand at smaller tables, use smaller tools... Catch my drift? Child sized equipment makes sense here. And it doesn't need to be fancy and elaborate. Our mud kitchen is a small water table my older son got for his 2nd birthday and a secondhand toy barbecue I found for $5 at the thrift store. Our only outdoor "furniture" is a rescued tree stump.
- Consider All of Your "Surfaces:" When it comes to set up and storage outdoors, we think about the ground space, but consider all of your options. In our space we hang paper for art work with magnetic clips on our front or back doors, which happen to be magnetic. We store some things at ground level in baskets, but other things we store on plant hooks or shower curtain rings from our porch railing.
- Swap and Rotate: Just like we swap and rotate toys and materials inside our homes and classrooms, so, too, can we do this outdoors (and I'd venture to say it's a good thing)! Perhaps you have some favorites that are always out and available, but some items are changed and/or rotated with the seasons, with particular themes or as interest strikes. The mud kitchen is always a favorite space, but once in a while it might become a mad scientist's laboratory or an outdoor dinosaur washing station or a potting shed... Small world play might include a set of construction toys and trucks and then be swapped out for toy dinosaurs or a collection of small fairies and dollhouse furniture. Change is good!
- Portability: Again, this is a topic I will go more into depth on later, but having items that are portable and easily stored and taken indoors can be helpful. I love our "I Wonder" station as it is merely a plant hook from which a basket, bag or sign can be hung from indoors. Our portable tabletop easels were $5 on a sale at a craft supply store last summer. They are just perfect for setting up outdoors or inside. Since we don't have room outdoors for lawn furniture, collapsible camping chairs are great. Setting up a nature-on-the-go kit and accessible storage near outdoor exits from inside can be really helpful in keeping organized and prepared to use your outdoor classroom.
- Space versus Stuff: When it comes to outdoor learning, the space is more valuable than the stuff in it. Repeat after me: What I have is enough, what I have is enough, what I have is enough. This one is so challenging for me. I have ideas. A lot of ideas. Enough ideas. I don't need all of the stuff that are in my ideas and I don't need it all at once. I have two kids. They can share and take turns. Even if I had more kids, they can share and take turns. Not everyone needs their own item at the same time. Certain things, yes, they do--everyone has their own rain boots and rain coats. Everyone has their own water clothes for sprinkler play. But we don't need sets of tools and toys for everyone. Each of my boys has only two hands and two feet. What we have is enough.
- Filling in the Gaps: With small or shared spaces comes particular challenges. One of our greatest challenges in our space is not having a water hookup outside. I'd love to have access to a sprinkler and garden hose and we don't. We haul water in watering cans from inside and to fill in the gap, I bought a plastic jug with a spigot we fill and haul for water access. This year I'm coming up with a way to MacGyver it into a rain barrel so we can collect from nature's abundance and make use of it in our garden. We can't practically have a three bin compost setup but we can have a kitchen compost pail and a small enclosed rotating composter outside. We can't directly sow a huge garden in our space and have an area for the boys to play and trample, so we container garden and are budgeting in a raised bed table this year. Filling in the gaps when you're short on space means not having everything you might want all at once, but there are creative (and budget/environmentally friendly ways) to incorporate the things that feel most important. Decide for yourself what those elements are and how you might implement them. When in doubt, there are great ideas online and I am always happy to have my brain picked as well.
I hope that this has been helpful as
you venture forward in your own outdoor classroom this season. We will be back once more exploring ways to take this all on the go with you, whether you have no designated outdoor space at all or just want to make your nature based learning more portable. Until then...
Happy Playing!
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