Nature-Based Small World Play: Bringing the Outdoors Inside

In early childhood education, outdoor play offers endless opportunities for exploration, observation, and discovery. But what happens when the weather turns stormy, the ground is icy, or you want to extend a nature-based inquiry beyond the playground? That’s where nature-based small world play shines. By bringing natural elements indoors through small world play, educators can extend nature-based investigations into the classroom and  we give children the chance to revisit, reflect, and deepen their learning offer daily connections to the living world.

This approach keeps children connected to the natural world all year round. It allows educators to capture the magic of outdoor discoveries—whether that’s a fascination with bugs, birds, or woodland animals and weave them into play-based learning experiences indoors.

Nature-based small world play helps create meaningful links between a child’s outdoor adventures and their indoor learning. Whether it’s a woodland scene with logs and pinecones, or a beach-themed bin with sand and shells, these miniature landscapes nurture a sense of place, deepen understanding of habitats, and allow for sensory-rich imaginative play.

What is Nature-Based Small World Play?

Small world play involves using miniature figures, props, and sensory materials to create story-rich environments. When grounded in natural materials, these setups encourage children to explore the patterns, textures, and behaviours found in real ecosystems.

Using rocks, sticks, leaves, water, sand, seeds, pinecones, shells, and more, children can create habitats for insects, forest animals, birds, or marine life. These play experiences not only ignite storytelling and imaginative thinking but also foster a deeper respect for nature and ecological systems.

Exploring Nature Connections Through Small World Play

Small world play is an imaginative, hands-on form of dramatic play where children create miniature environments using loose parts, natural materials, and figures. Nature-based small worlds simply add an authentic twist—incorporating sticks, leaves, rocks, pinecones, sand, shells, and other found objects to recreate habitats, seasonal scenes, and ecosystems.

These miniature landscapes invite children to:

• Revisit outdoor learning by retelling experiences from a nature walk or garden exploration.
  
• Observe and classify natural materials, building early science and geography skills.
  
• Investigate habitats and the needs of living things, from ponds and forests to polar regions and gardens.
  
• Engage in rich storytelling inspired by real-world environments and creatures.
  

Learning Through Habitats and Natural Environments

Nature-based small world play is an ideal way to support early science, literacy, and social-emotional learning outcomes. Children can:

• Recreate environments they’ve visited or learned about (ponds, forests, beaches, gardens)
• Learn about animal habitats, food chains, and seasonal changes
• Build empathy by caring for toy animals or respecting nature-inspired scenes
• Use descriptive vocabulary like bark, burrow, camouflage, nest, and ecosystem
• Classify natural materials by texture, shape, or origin
• Sequence story events like migration, hibernation, or growth cycles

By incorporating found materials and connecting play to real-life outdoor experiences, we help children build foundational understanding of the natural world.

Learning More About Habitats and the Natural Environment

When children create a habitat in small world play, they’re doing more than arranging materials—they’re constructing knowledge. By placing a frog on a lily pad or building a nest for a bird, they’re exploring how animals interact with their environment, what they eat, how they move, and where they find shelter.

Examples from nature-based small world setups include:

• Bug Habitats: Using rocks, wood rounds, pinecones, and  insect figures to explore where bugs live and how they move.
  
• Woodland & Forest Animals: Building miniature forests with moss, leaves, and logs, learning about hibernation, seasons, and local wildlife. Use bark, moss, sticks, leaves, and plastic forest animals. Invite children to build shelters and observe which materials blend into the background
  
• Pond Life: Creating a pond scene to investigate the frog lifecycle, pond plants, and water-dwelling creatures.
  
• Build a Nest: Collecting natural materials to design bird nests, introducing concepts of animal behaviour and seasonal change.
• Ocean World:
  Fill a tray with water, smooth pebbles, and shells. Add sea creatures and encourage storytelling about tides, waves, or treasure hunting.
• Garden Habitat: Create a soil-based bin with worms (toy or real!), seed pods, and garden tools. Explore what plants and insects live underground or above.
• Polar Small World: Use white felt, cotton balls, ice cubes, and polar animals. Talk about survival in cold habitats, melting ice, and animal adaptations.