Focus on creative early learning landscaping
At Great Spaces, we specialise in full-service early learning landscaping in Melbourne, creating inspiring playgrounds tailored to educational needs. Our experience and understanding of requirements to deliver child-centric spaces make us the ideal choice to bring your early learning or school’s play areas to life. We give children more room to play and explore their surroundings with inspiring designs that truly pay tribute to what it means to be a kid!
We believe landscapes should nurture and inspire
Our dedicated, professional landscapers work with you to create a customised design that meets your playground requirements and inspires and delights your students. We’ll brainstorm and research new ideas and concepts to meet your brief and source and utilise the best materials to achieve your desired result.
Nature Play landscaping for early learning
Great Spaces has a specialist design and construction team dedicated to creating Nature Play spaces for early learning centres and schools. “Nature Play” revolves around creating outdoor environments encouraging young children to engage with and explore nature playfully and experientially. These spaces intentionally promote unstructured, imaginative, and sensory-rich experiences that support children’s physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development. Key elements of nature play in early learning landscape design include:
- Natural Elements: Nature play spaces incorporate natural elements like rocks, logs, sand, water, plants, and materials, providing children with opportunities to interact with the natural environment.
- Risk and Challenge: Nature play encourages managed risks and challenges, allowing children to develop problem-solving skills, confidence, and resilience. Climbing structures, uneven terrains, and balancing logs are typical elements that provide appropriate challenges.
- Imaginative Play: Nature play spaces often have open-ended features that stimulate imaginative play. Children’s creativity can transform simple elements like loose parts, mud kitchens, and natural nooks into various play scenarios.
- Sensory Stimulation: Natural materials engage children’s senses, fostering sensory exploration. The different textures, smells, and sounds of nature enhance sensory awareness and cognitive development.
- Biodiversity: Early learning landscapes with a variety of plants and habitats introduce children to biodiversity and the interconnectedness of living things in the ecosystem.
- Environmental Education: Nature play spaces can serve as outdoor classrooms where children learn about nature, wildlife, and ecological concepts through hands-on experiences.
- Social Interaction: Nature play supports social development by encouraging collaborative and cooperative play. Children learn to share, negotiate, and communicate while engaging in unstructured play with their peers.
- Environmental Stewardship: Exposure to nature from an early age fosters a sense of connection to the natural world and lays the foundation for environmental stewardship in the future.
- Physical Development: Nature play spaces offer opportunities for gross motor development, balance, coordination, and physical activity through climbing, running, jumping, and exploring the outdoor environment.
- Well-Being and Health: Being in nature promotes mental well-being, reduces stress, and contributes to the overall physical health of young children.
Our team understands that nature play spaces support holistic development and lay the groundwork for a lifelong connection to nature and the environment by providing a rich and diverse outdoor environment. If you’d like to know more about how we could bring more nature and play to your facility, talk to us.
Custom made early learning play equipment
As a Nature Play landscape design and construction specialist, we manufacture custom-made play structures tailored to the early learning environment. Our designs are inspired by nature and use locally sourced sustainable timber, rock, sand and rope. We ensure they seamlessly blend into each outdoor environment while offering safe and stimulating play opportunities, including:
Every element is thoughtfully designed to encourage exploration, imagination, and connection to the outdoors while adhering to local planning, accessibility, and independent safety auditors. As per nature, every structure is unique. They can be assembled and installed on-site individually or supplied as part of a more extensive early learning landscape design and construction project.
Assistance with Building Blocks Government Grants
Since launching in 2020, the Victorian Government’s Building Blocks grants have helped local councils and other not-for-profit providers build, expand, and modernise early learning centres and kindergartens across the state. A successful grant application requires careful planning and attention to detail.
Our landscape design and project manager, Peter O’Neill, understands the grant process and has assisted facilities across Melbourne in meeting the guidelines and designing the project to secure funding and upgrade their playgrounds and equipment. It’s important to remember to provide relevant and accurate information while presenting a compelling case for why your early learning facility deserves the funding for the upgrade. We’ll help you focus on how the improvements will positively impact the quality of early childhood education and benefit the children and the community.
To apply for a Building Blocks grant to build, expand or upgrade your existing kindergarten, visit funding for early childhood education infrastructure
If you’d like to know more about bringing Nature Play Landscape Design and assistance with grant applications, contact Peter O’Neill at Great Spaces
