HangingOUT!” project and it's playplace

Europe is facing challenges such as complex cultural diversity in classrooms, early school leaving and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Quality early childhood education and care (ECEC, 1 to 6 years old) can be a bridge to tackle these challenges. The “HangingOUT!” project considers outdoor education as a way to enhance the quality of early childhood education and care as well as promote active citizenship. We start from the assumption that ‘every’ outdoor context can be a rich environment that fosters learning and development in an holistic way. The outdoor space is accessible to all and is in that sense very democratic.

Although many people are convinced that outdoor learning is powerful, a lot of teachers and parents are still cautious in promoting outdoors play. There’s a lack of confidence in going outside. In some places, this leads to less outdoor time for children and we don't always feel skilled enough to support children's play outside. Professionals are still searching to make the most of all the opportunities of the outdoor space.

Within our project we developed some tools and exercises that give teacher training students and (ECEC) professionals the opportunity to gain more self-confidence in exploring the outdoors with young children, in dialogue with each other.

Playplace is a collection of videos capturing micro-interactions between children and the outdoor environment in different contexts distributed  across countries.

more about playplace