Outdoor Play - Treasure Hunt

Outdoor play – Christmas Treasure Hunt

Our project was based on the provision of using outdoor play environment and using this advantage of setting up a Christmas Treasure Hunt.

We used outdoor play on the basis of physical education and how we can explain to children that keeping fit and healthy whilst being outdoors is beneficial. It can also promote social and intellectual development throughout an outdoor activity and this can have a positive impact on children in the EYFS and the National Curriculum for their future.

The quote from Hymes (1981) states, ‘since young children are constantly active they need two types of classrooms: simple space indoors, and more generous space outdoors’. This gives us the idea that children need both of these environments and they need to be constantly active in both classrooms in order to learn new experiences.

We felt that our outdoor play activity would be a great experience in the EYFS and National Curriculum as it can help children if they do not have access to an outdoor environment and they can experience the outdoors in their setting.

Our Project

Our project was based on the idea of incorporating Christmas and a treasure hunt together to make a fun and exciting activity that can promote outdoor whilst doing this through a seasonal holiday.

We came up with the idea of having two teams; team Santa and team Elf and using a template paper of Santa and Elf and cutting up the treasure pieces of Santa and Elf into five pieces.

We then placed the five pieces of each picture and scattered these pieces around a small area of the outdoors and we put up a template of the Santa and Elf on a wall for a guide for both teams.

Before the activity started we stated the rules, put Santa and Elf in a hat for each person to pick to make the activity fair and also we brought Santa and elf hats and gave these hats to each team so we can see what person belonged to which team.

There wasn’t many resources in our project and it was more the creative side and using templates from the internet as part of our creativity and to reduce costs of resources. Although this activity is competitive we gave both teams a prize and our outlook on if children were doing this activity then we can show that everyone is a winner.

Documentation

We can document this activity by using a narrative observation so we can detail every moment briefly and reflect back on this when we can come to a conclusion. Also we can take photos of the children participating in the activity and see how they partake and work together as a team.

If we could do this activity again, we would make more teams and make it not as competitive as it worked out when the activity was taking place.



The cut-outs of Santa and Elf before they were cut up into several treasure hunt pieces.
 



We traced over the Santa and Elf to help children have a guideline and extra help of what the character looks like.

We then placed these treasure hunt pieces outside and placed some where they could be seen and some that were more obscure.

The final image is where teams would place the pieces i.e. the elf head and put the puzzle together. 



Student IDs:     
 

 1303386

 

•1304214

•1212401

•1307245