By Ali Aspin, Early Years Training and Development Lead at Learning through Landscapes
For young children, the outdoors is more than just a place to play, it’s a world full of stories, textures, discoveries, and questions. The National Education Nature Park embraces this curiosity, inviting early years settings across England to explore, enhance, and celebrate their outdoor spaces while helping children build a lifelong connection with nature.
What is the National Education Nature Park?
The National Education Nature Park is a free national programme that supports nurseries, schools, and colleges to understand their outdoor spaces, turn the ‘grey’ areas like concrete playgrounds into green, nature-rich spaces, and involve children in hands-on environmental action. The programme guides settings through a simple, five-step journey:
The Natural History Museum are leading this DfE-funded project and for early years settings, Learning through Landscapes (LtL) leads on adapting these steps so that even the youngest children can take part. Activities and resources are practical, playful, and sensory-rich from soil exploration to mini-beast hunts, from planting wildflowers to spotting seasonal changes. Everything is designed to help children explore the natural world in ways that feel age-appropriate, fun, meaningful and linked to the learning and development areas within the early years’ framework.
Why the Nature Park matters in the Early Years
1. Nature supports mental health and wellbeing
Getting muddy and spending time outdoors supports young children’s mental health. Natural spaces calm the nervous system, help children regulate emotions, and encourage confidence and resilience. Splashing in puddles, planting bulbs, and discovering worms provide real sensory nourishment at an age where children learn best through memorable experiences.
2. Hands-on learning builds curiosity and agency
Even toddlers can take part in shaping their environment, collecting leaves, planting seeds, watering, or noticing the insects that appear. These small acts help children feel responsible, capable, and part of something bigger. The Nature Park encourages children to share ideas, work together, and see the results of their actions over time.
3. It lays foundations for environmental understanding
Early childhood is when attitudes to nature begin to form. Through the Nature Park, children learn that plants need care, habitats can be protected, and small changes make a big difference. These early experiences nurture empathy and stewardship, qualities at the heart of future environmental responsibility. Reference: The Benefits of the Outdoors on Children’s Mental Health – The Kids Mental Health Foundation
Linking to EYFS learning and development
The Nature Park aligns with the EYFS framework and supports progress towards all Early Learning Goals (ELGs). Click on the link below to explore some of the activities. This guide specifies which area of learning the activity is tied to and which of the five stages of the programme it is associated with: A Nature Park guide for EYFS.
Communication and Language: Nature offers endless opportunities for conversation, describing textures, noticing sounds, asking questions, naming plants and creatures, and developing storytelling skills. Why not try Emotional responses to nature | Education Nature Park to get children thinking about and discussing how nature makes them feel?
Prime areas
- Communication and Language: Nature offers endless opportunities for conversation, describing textures, noticing sounds, asking questions, naming plants and creatures, and developing storytelling skills. Why not try Emotional responses to nature | Education Nature Park to get children thinking about and discussing how nature makes them feel?
- Physical Development: Digging, carrying water, climbing over logs, and fine-motor tasks like sowing seeds all strengthen motor skills. Try this fun resource to create your own Insect Olympics: Insect Olympics | Education Nature Park
- Personal, Social & Emotional Development: Collaborating outdoors fosters teamwork, problem-solving, confidence, and resilience. Looking after living things also builds empathy and responsibility. This green careers and role play ideas resource may get you thinking about developing a green careers role play area in your setting.
Specific areas
- Understanding the World: Central to the Nature Park. Children explore living things, observe change, compare habitats, and begin simple scientific enquiry. One quick way to get children exploring outdoors is to explore life underground by creating a dig pit.
- Mathematics: Counting petals, comparing leaf sizes, measuring plant growth, and sorting natural materials embed maths in meaningful contexts. Explore mathematical opportunities outdoors through this counting outdoor activity guide.
- Expressive Arts & Design: Natural objects inspire art, music, construction, and imaginative play, from leaf collages to tiny creature homes. This activity guides students through the decision making stage by using pictures of potential changes and collaging them onto a map, to think about where they might work best in their space.
Why your setting should get involved
- It’s completely free to register and access materials.
- Activities are designed specifically for early years, ensuring children can participate safely and joyfully.
- Outdoor improvements don’t need large spaces — even a courtyard or balcony can become part of the Nature Park.
- You join a national community, contributing data and stories to a country-wide map of greening progress.
- It enriches your curriculum with purposeful, child-led environmental learning.
- It builds strong home–setting partnerships, as families often get inspired to explore nature projects at home too.
Getting started
Signing up is simple. Once registered, you can use the early years guide to map your space, choose small achievable actions, and involve children in every step. Whether you add a planter, create a tiny meadow patch, or start a “creature spotting” routine, each improvement supports children’s development while contributing to creating a ‘Nature Park’ across the England.