As early childhood professionals, we recognise that children's learning takes place in a variety of settings and through a range of experiences. Providing regular opportunities for children to explore beyond their familiar environments is essential. Community engagement plays a vital role in enhancing the developmental benefits that excursions bring, offering rich and meaningful learning experiences.
As a team we have agreed that the main benefits of engaging with the community for children are:
- connections to the local community surrounding the Service
- broadening their understanding of the world in which they live
- small group interactions
- opportunities to teach the children about road safety
- physical and mental health and wellbeing
- supports education for sustainability curriculum
- opportunities for mixed age grouping
Our families provide permission for ongoing local excursions, valid for a 12-month period. This includes detailed information about the location, the purpose and benefits of the excursion, staff-to-child ratios, group size, and the types of activities planned. The distance and mode of transport are also specified.
Before each outing, children are consulted, as some may prefer to remain at the service and engage in play.
Spontaneity and purpose
As children grow and develop, connections to the outside world help them to find their place in the world, to develop understandings of how society works, and to recognise and understand the shared values that underpin our society.
(NQS PLP e-Newsletter No.47, 2012)
Most local excursions from our service are short (15 minutes to 1 hour) and spontaneous. This means that families find out about the excursion via a Kinderloop post, which can be done during or soon after the excursion and when they pick their child up. We sign the children out of the service using Smart Central Kiosk, which shows parents and carers that their child has been out of the centre when they are picked up in the afternoon.
Preschoolers attend longer nature play excursions during the second half of the year that can last up to 6 hours. We take our morning tea and lunch with us, as well as art diaries, pencils and pens to record our adventures.
We also go on small group excursions on the local bus to the city with our older children. We go to art galleries, museums and theatres, connecting with experiences that link to the curriculum. For these we seek parent permissions, conduct risk assessments and plan in advance.
Effective communication within the team about excursions is essential. Educators collaborate to plan which staff and children will participate in each outing. Records are maintained to ensure every child has the opportunity to join an excursion over time.
Excursions for younger children are kept short and within 500 metres of the service, allowing them to gradually build up to longer outings. Regular excursions help both children and educators gain confidence, which contributes to the success of larger excursions over time.
Examples of our regular excursions include:
- nature play at surrounding parks
- walking to the post office to collect or post mail (pictured above)
- going to the supermarket to purchase supplies for an experience
- going to other shops – hardware, garden shop for supplies
- bird watching in the park
- visiting a local school to engage in school events
- utilise the large grassed areas to play ball games and run
- to collect leaves for our stick insects
- visiting the local public library
- walking around the local community – just to observe what’s going on.
Outings that might inspire you
Letter hunting in Annandale
In 2016 the preschool children read the book Big Letter Hunt London (a book that uses photography to find shapes that represent letters in architecture around London).
The children decided they could take photos of the letters around Annandale and create their own book. The educators and children decided to venture out around the local streets across many weeks, the children engaged in many short walking excursions within a kilometre radius of the service.
While walking the streets of Annandale, so much learning was happening. The children were out and about and engaging with our local community. They were developing their ways of looking for shapes in buildings, architectural details and street-scapes. Conversations about letters became meaningful as an interest in decoding the symbols began to blossom.
The result of these excursions is a book called Letters around Annandale (pictured below).
It is an amazing example of the learning that can take place by getting out of the gate!
The Boomerang Bag Project
In 2018, the preschool children were horrified by the amount of plastic waste in the canal running by our centre and parks we play in. They wanted to find ways to help reduce plastic waste in our community and communicate how others in the community can help. Their action led to the Boomerang Bag project, which is still ongoing 6 years later. Over the project, the service has sewn hundreds of tote bags from recycled fabric to be used instead of plastic bags.
The Auslan Project
In 2023, the 2 year olds and their teachers began learning Auslan (Australian sign language) together. As their wordbank grew, the teachers realised that many of the words the children were interested in signing were while they were out the gate. To support this, the Auslan website was accessed from the centre's excursion mobile phone, so the children and teachers could learn to sign together in the moment. Then new words were documented with video, drawing and photography upon returning to school. This documentation resulted in the Auslan Book, a dictionary of sorts, describing the children’s understanding of their world through sign.
Outings don't need to be related to a bigger project to foster learning
When we head out to nearby parklands we:
- engage in nature play, connecting with natural spaces in our community
- observe natural habitats and learn about bush regeneration of the local area
- are exposed to a range of environmental print, teaching children that signs communicate a message to the reader
- gain opportunities to learn about about road safety
- visit the local community garden and orchard.
