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Written by Roisin, Nominated Supervisor | Castle Hill
How Outdoor Play Builds Curious Kids
Ask any educator at Dashing Ducks Castle Hill what the best part of their day is, and you’ll get the same answer in slightly different words: the moment a child finds something outside that they’ve never noticed before. A snail under a leaf. A new shoot poking out of the garden bed they watered last week. The way a stick sounds when you tap it against a tree trunk.
Outdoor play sits at the centre of how we teach, and it isn’t just because the kids love it. Decades of research, plus 30 years of our own classroom experience, point to the same thing: when young children spend significant time outside, with permission to get messy and the freedom to follow their own questions, they become more curious, more confident, and more ready for school. This article walks through what that looks like across our babies room, toddlers room and pre-school room at our Castle Hill centre.
Why outdoor play matters in the early years
Children under five learn through their bodies. They have to feel cold water, lift the heavy log, balance on the uneven path. Pushing a toy truck across a carpet is fun, but it can’t teach a toddler what their own legs can do on a slope, or what happens to sand when you add half a cup of water.
A growing body of research backed by groups like Nature Play Australia shows that little kids who get regular outdoor time tend to sleep better, eat better, develop gross motor skills earlier, and hold their attention for longer during quiet indoor activities. They’re also more willing to try new things, which matters more than it sounds. A four-year-old who feels confident climbing onto a tree stump is the same four-year-old who’ll feel confident walking into a new kindergarten classroom.
Outdoor play is also one of the easiest ways for educators to bring the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) to life in observable ways. Children become curious learners, engaged with their world and connected to people and place. That sentence does a lot of heavy lifting on paper. In our gardens, it just looks like a three-year-old crouched over an ant trail for ten minutes straight.
Our Castle Hill centre is built for this. The service is set inside a heritage-listed home on Garthowen Crescent, and the back of the property opens onto sensory gardens, a sandpit, climbing logs, a mud kitchen, shaded reading nooks and garden beds the children plant themselves. Indoor and outdoor learning aren’t kept on a strict timetable. A child painting at an inside easel can wander out to add a flower from the garden, and a preschooler reading about caterpillars can run out to find one.
In our babies and toddlers rooms
Outdoor learning starts the day a baby joins us. Tiny humans don’t need a structured lesson, they need safe sensory input, and the outdoors is full of it. In our babies room, educators bring our youngest ducklings out for short, frequent visits to the shaded outdoor area. Some are still learning to crawl, so we lay them on a soft blanket where they can feel grass between their fingers, hear birds overhead, and watch leaves move in the breeze.
For babies who are pulling up and walking, we set up low planter beds full of safe herbs like mint and basil. Babies grab handfuls, sniff, sometimes taste. Those quiet moments aren’t filler. They’re how a tiny brain wires itself to recognise textures, smells and sounds, and they happen alongside an educator sitting on the grass and chatting quietly, which is the kind of unhurried, responsive relationship the EYLF treats as the foundation of everything else.
Two and three-year-olds are where outdoor play really catches fire. They want to test everything. Will this rock fit in this bucket? What happens if I pour the water there? Why is the dirt darker in the shade? Our toddlers room leans into this with what educators call “loose parts” play, which is a fancy word for stuff you can pour, stack, build with and pretend with. Think sticks, leaves, pinecones, pebbles, water trays, mud kitchen pots.
The room has been on a planting kick lately: filling small pots with potting mix, dropping seeds in, and then very seriously watering them every morning. What looks like play is actually a packed-out learning session. Toddlers count seeds, name colours, take turns, problem-solve when their pot tips over, and practise the kind of careful hand control that will later let them hold a pencil. Add the social negotiation of sharing one watering can between three eager helpers, and a single garden activity covers most of the EYLF outcomes in one go. You can see plenty of these moments on our Castle Hill Instagram.
In our pre-school room: building school-ready kids
By the time children move into our pre-school room, outdoor play takes on another layer. The children are old enough to plan, to lead, and to follow a project for days at a time. A typical week might include an outdoor animal safari, where toys are hidden through the garden and children draw maps to find them again. There are Fundamental Movement Skills sessions in the play yard, focused on running, hopping, throwing and catching. We’ve recently been running these in partnership with St Bernadette’s Primary School next door, which has been a quiet highlight of the term.
The pre-school children also do a lot of “found object” art. Leaves, petals, gum nuts and chalk get collected around the yard and pulled together into group murals on butcher’s paper. Many of the children keep their own pre-school journals, where they sketch and dictate observations about something they saw outside that day. Looking back through those journals at the end of the year tells a clear story of growing confidence with pencils, with words, and with their own ideas.
This is also where the school readiness side of our program really shows up. Outdoor play in preschool isn’t just fun. It’s where children practise listening to instructions, taking calculated risks, working in teams, and bouncing back when something doesn’t go to plan. These are exactly the skills kindergarten teachers tell us they wish more new students arrived with. Plenty of these moments end up on our Instagram too, where you can see the children at full tilt in the yard.
What to look for when you tour a centre
If you’re visiting other centres around Castle Hill or the Hills District, here’s what’s worth checking. Is there real, usable garden space, not just a paved play area with a slide? Are there genuine natural elements like logs, sand, soil and planted herbs, or only plastic? Do educators light up when they talk about outdoor learning, or treat it as a chore? Is there a clear approach to risk that trusts children to try small, age-appropriate challenges, or does everything feel locked down? Can children move freely between indoor and outdoor spaces, or are they stuck on a strict timetable?
Centres that take outdoor learning seriously usually pair it with the other markers of a quality service: CCS-subsidised fees, low staff turnover, ECEC-qualified educators, and a calm, family-feel atmosphere rather than an industrial vibe. Visiting in person beats reading any blog, including this one.
Outdoor play at Dashing Ducks also extends beyond the gate. The children walk to nearby parks, get visits from local firefighters and police officers, deliver homemade ANZAC biscuits to the Castle Hill RSL, and link up with neighbouring schools for shared activities. Each of those little outings ties outdoor learning to a real place, a real face, and a real reason, which helps children feel like the outside world is something they belong to. Plenty of parents have shared what they noticed during their own tours over on our testimonials page.
Outdoor play is just as central at the daycare Croydon families visit each day, where children spend hours in the yard.
Some of that curiosity turns into projects that run for weeks rather than minutes. One June a parcel of chrysalises arrived at our Castle Hill preschool and the three and four-year-olds spent ten days watching the whole butterfly life cycle play out.
Come and Visit Us at Dashing Ducks Castle Hill
The best way to feel the difference outdoor learning makes is to come and see it for yourself. We welcome families from Castle Hill, Bella Vista, West Pennant Hills, Cherrybrook and across the Hills District to drop in for a tour at our Castle Hill centre, 14 Garthowen Crescent. You can arrange a time through our contact page, and we’ll walk you through every room, including the gardens that started this whole article. We can’t wait to see your little one get their hands dirty.
Dashing Ducks
Friendly, Experienced Team
Family-Owned, always
Nutritious Meals daily
Our learning environment is designed to inspire curiosity and creativity, fostering a love for exploration while supporting every child’s.
01
Holistic Learning
Approach
We focus on nurturing the whole child—academically, socially, and emotionally ensuring they develop essential skills.
02
Safe & Supportive
Learning
We prioritise safety and well-being, providing a secure online space where children can explore, learn, and grow.
03
Proven Adaptive
Learning
Focusing on each child's strengths, boosting confidence and academic performance with measurable progress.
