Why Outdoor Play Is Essential for Kids' Growth | Susie Spikol on Nature, Learning & Imagination

What if the solution to many childhood developmental challenges was literally right outside our windows? Naturalist and author Susie Spiegel reveals how unstructured nature play creates the perfect environment for children to develop crucial life skills that structured indoor activities simply can't replicate.

Drawing from her book "Forest Magic for Kids: How to Find Fairies, Make a Secret Fort, and Cook Up an Elfin Picnic," Spiegel shares how simple outdoor activities like mixing "potions" from natural materials or creating miniature fairy villages foster imagination while simultaneously developing communication skills, risk assessment abilities, and emotional regulation. These activities don't require specialized knowledge or expensive equipment—just the willingness to step outside and model curiosity.

Perhaps most fascinating is how outdoor environments can transform children who struggle in traditional classroom settings. Those labeled as "troublemakers" indoors often become leaders in nature, where their heightened awareness becomes an advantage rather than a distraction. As Spiegel explains, "A lot of times kids that are hyper aware—somebody who might have ADHD—they're seeing a million things outside. They're the kids spotting the cardinal because they're seeing things in a really fast and exciting way."

The good news? Nature-based play is accessible even in urban environments. From the "sliver" between buildings to cracks in sidewalks, children can find wonder anywhere with the right guidance. With simple tools like buckets, magnifying glasses, and journals, families can start small and gradually build confidence in outdoor exploration—creating not just cherished memories but crucial developmental opportunities our screen-centric world increasingly lacks.

Ready to discover the transformative power of unstructured outdoor play for the children in your life? This episode provides a practical roadmap for bringing the magic of nature into everyday childhood experiences, no matter where you live.

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Sponsored by Dr. Gregg Hassler Jr., DMD
Trusted dental care for healthy smiles and stronger communities—building brighter futures daily.

Chapters

• 0:00 Nature-Based Play: Connecting Children to Wonder
• 3:32 Meet Susie Spiegel: Author of Forest Magic for Kids
• 5:12 Imagination and Nature: Finding Adventure Outside
• 9:32 Nature Everywhere: Even in Urban Settings
• 14:26 Benefits of Extended Outdoor Time
• 18:42 Empowering Struggling Students Through Nature
• 23:18 Summer Essentials for Outdoor Play
• 26:38 Small Worlds: A Winning Activity for All Ages

Transcript

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 0:19

Naturalist John Muir once observed that when we tug on one thread in nature, we find it connected to everything else. That sentiment rings especially true when we consider how children connect to the world through unstructured outdoor play. Today, we explore how nature-based play can spark imagination, build resilience and restore balance in young lives. One stick, one trail and one treasure hunt at a time. Welcome to the brighter side of education, research, innovation and resources. I'm your host, dr Lisa Hassler, here to enlighten and brighten the classrooms in America through focused conversation on important topics in education. In each episode, I discuss problems we as teachers and parents are facing and what people are doing in their communities to fix it. What are the variables and how can we duplicate it to maximize student outcomes? Today's topic calls us back to the roots, quite literally. We're exploring the power of nature based play and how fostering imagination through outdoor experiences supports children's cognitive and social-emotional development. According to a 2019 study in Frontiers in Psychology, regular exposure to green spaces is associated with improved attention, reduced stress and stronger executive functioning in children. An unstructured outdoor play, where kids make up their own games, follow their curiosity and explore, has been strongly linked to greater creativity and collaboration, especially in early and middle childhood. Yet in many schools, recess and unstructured time are becoming flashpoints for social tension. Educators are reporting more frequent conflict, trouble with sharing and kids struggling to just figure out what to do without adult guidance. One reason may be that children simply aren't getting enough opportunities to practice self-directed imaginative play and without those experiences children can arrive at recess feeling overstimulated or unsure, lacking the tools to engage positively with peers, and what looks like misbehavior may really be a missed developmental opportunity.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 2:29

That approach comes to life beautifully in the work of Susie Spiegel, a seasoned naturalist with the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock, new Hampshire. Susie has spent decades connecting people of all ages to the natural world and is the author of Forest Magic for Kids how to Find Fairies, make a Secret Fort and Cook Off an Elfin Picnic. Her book is filled with whimsical yet practical activities that invite children to slow down, look closely and discover the wild magic all around them. Magic all around them. From keeping secret notebooks filled with maps and pockets to going on quests for wild treasures. Susie's work is a delightful call to step outside, reimagine the everyday and rediscover childhood wonder. Susie, welcome to the show.

Susie Spikol: 3:15

Thank you, Lisa. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm so excited to talk with you.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 3:18

Well, let's start with your book Forest Magic for Kids how to Find Fairies, make a Secret Fort and Cook Up an Elfin Picnic. I absolutely love the title. I've been thumbing through it and it has brought back so many childhood memories. How did you come up with this? The combination of imaginative storytelling and the nature exploration.

Susie Spikol: 3:37

Yeah, that's such a great question because we don't often think of them together. So I'm a naturalist, I teach people of all ages about nature and I got to thinking about how I became a naturalist, and it wasn't through science. Actually, like, a lot of naturalists have a spark bird, they fall in love with birds or something like that. For me, I came to nature through stories like I read Winnie the Pooh or the Lion, to nature through stories Like I read Winnie the Pooh or the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or, you know, stuart Little, and I thought these books, where all these great adventures happen, they happen outside.

Susie Spikol: 4:12

So I was like that's where the adventure is. So that's how I got into nature, because I was out looking for like a secret door to another world or something like that. And then I found out, you know, nature is just as remarkable. The stories, the real stories of nature, are just as remarkable. So I wanted to write a book that really linked the idea of imagination and creativity in the outdoors for us as adults to remember, that's probably how many of us aim to be outside. You know we were playing outside, so that that's kind of what I was thinking when I wrote the book.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 4:48

In my own garden I have little fairy doors. My mother gave my kids a book about making fairy doors when they were little, so I loved it when I saw the things about fairies in here. Can you tell us how the book is organized and how parents would use it?

Susie Spikol: 5:03

Yeah, sure. So the book is really designed for parents and kids to do together. Like in my mind, kids really need some modeling about how to be outside and how to engage and kind of how to explore. And parents, this is what's so good about it you don't have to have any like special knowledge, you don't need to know, like, what bird is singing or what tree is nearby, you also just have to use your imagination and once you kind of kickstart with your kids, kind of entering the world of outdoors and imagining and creating, they'll take it from there.

Susie Spikol: 5:40

And so I really just organized the book into things that I have seen kids be really excited about, from kind of mushrooms, mysterious mushrooms what's more magical than the idea of a mushroom? What is a mushroom? So there's a whole chapter on mushrooms. There's a chapter on the green team. That's just things you can do with plants and trees and kind of thinking about trees as the kind of the earth tree. You know we have so many stories in our world about the tree of life. Like so many cultures have trees at the center of their kind of creation stories. So there's connecting with trees and there's also making crowns and pretending you're a king or a queen. There's some cooking and making things for like a picnic, like whatever happened to picnicking. So I wanted to encourage families to go out and picnic together and have an Elfin picnic, and there's even a recipe on how to make Elf bread.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 6:30

So could you go from? Like any chapter, can you pick a chapter? Do you go from front to back? You can go anywhere.

Susie Spikol: 6:35

It's a really open-ended. You could just flip through the book and pick something to do. There's some handcrafts in there, making small little like. I call them peeps or little people, gnomes or fairies, whatever you want to call them. There's a little bit of carving, like making a stirring stick. If you're making a potion, you don't even have to use a carving knife, you can use a pretty sturdy vegetable peeler and just kind of peel off the end. That's great for a young child to begin the process of peeling. It's the whole idea of kind of getting your hands creating something, inventing something, kind of imagining the loose parts of nature sticks and stones and leaves as other things they can become. So it's really based in imagination and creativity and play Do you have a favorite activity?

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 7:23

Yes, I do.

Susie Spikol: 7:24

I am really into the potion making. For me that was a really big part of my childhood was kind of having an old pot and putting in some water, maybe just even rainwater, and then finding leaves and pine cone pieces and pine needles. We would pretend the pine needles were unicorn whiskers and you know the acorn caps were fairy hats. We'd stir it all up and we'd mush it up and then we'd also let it set there for him, come back to it, add mud, and we used a lot of. My mom didn't like this, but a lot of the kitchen utensils would end up outside. She eventually gave us some kitchen utensils from like her. When she got new ones, she gave us the old ones. How about you, lisa?

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 8:09

You know I have to say that the potion making was one of my favorite childhood memories and a neighbor friend of mine and I grew up together and that was one of our absolute favorite things to do, next to mud pie making, and we would get a big old pot and same thing, but we would grab the hose, fill some water in it and we'd pluck little snapdragons and stuff and we'd throw them into the pot. We called it witch's brew and it was one of my favorite things to make. And I had recently gone to a forest school and they are outside for long periods of unstructured time and that is one of their favorite things to do as well, as they have a little potion station and they have brought eyedroppers and all these things from home and they just love to do it. So when I see things like that and then I saw it in your book I thought I'm not the only one.

Susie Spikol: 8:59

Yes, I think it's sort of the fundamental work of childhood is really that type of play and when. When you can do it outside, you can be messy, so parents don't have to worry so much about oh my gosh, they're making a mess in my kitchen, they're using all my spices Just send them outside. You know, it's really how you learn to communicate. Like you and your friend probably had a lot of negotiating, you probably had to, like, figure out what you wanted to add to the potion you were creating. You were dreaming. I think that's really the work of childhood is really about play, and Forest Magic for Kids is sort of a celebration of that and a reminder to us as parents that that is a huge part of time outside. It isn't just learning the science of how nature works or having to identify things. It's really just about that open-endedness that nature gives us. The undefined landscape of the natural world is ripe for imagination and creation.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 10:01

So how could people like, let's say, you're living in an apartment or a condo or you don't have direct access to maybe parks and woods and forests, how could they still use this book? Yeah, great question.

Susie Spikol: 10:14

You know it always surprises people when I share that I grew up in Brooklyn, new York, because I am a naturalist and I'm so into nature and I live in a very rural place now and I think people see me and they just assumed I must have grown up like in the woods, you know, but I grew up in a city and I was one of those kids that found nature where I could, and it's good for us to remember that. Nature happens everywhere. It isn't just in the wild places, it is absolutely everywhere in the biggest cities, in the cracks of the sidewalk. For me as a kid it was in between these two garages. I called it the sliver. I had to go in sideways because you couldn't fit in this way, you couldn't foot forward, and the sliver was where I saw ants and snails and spiders and moss and dirt and earthworms.

Susie Spikol: 11:08

And I think as adults we have this idea that nature is like this pristine thing. You know it's, you have to go into nature. But really nature is around us and it's just about finding it. And so cityscapes have nature, every place has birds, so you can look up and look at the birds, you can see the sky, the clouds, you can find the cracks in the sidewalk, you can go to a park, you can go to the patches of lawn that might be in a neighborhood, the trees that are planted on city blocks. Lots and lots of cities are working towards making more green spaces in their city because people are realizing, through scientific research, the complete benefit of spending time outside, even if it's like just 20 minutes.

Susie Spikol: 11:53

There's so much evidence that shows that it's really good for us as humans. And why wouldn't it be? We came from nature. That's how we evolve through nature, so we're part of the natural world and spending time in it really is healthy for us, from lowering our cortisol, increasing our oxygen. Lowering our cortisol, increasing our oxygen, getting us more physically active, engaging all of our senses. It's multi-sensory. If you want high definition, just go outside.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 12:22

Yeah, you talked about the sliver. It reminded me of that same friend and I would go between her house and my grandparents' house and we'd make a big fat mud pie and let them bake in the sun, and it was in between our driveways and the sidewalk. So this was a small little nothing.

Susie Spikol: 12:40

I mean, really, if you think about a child, they're small and they're kind of can be small, it can just be a sliver between two garages, a slice of land between two homes, a corner of a backyard.

Susie Spikol: 12:52

They don't need Alaska, they just need a little bit and a little bit of encouragement and modeling from us as adults around them. I think that is what, like outside exploration really gives children and we are living in a world where kids are more and more like glued into a tiny little screen and there's lots of amazing things that happen on the tiny screen. I'm saying there isn't, but it's not multi-sensory really. You know it's so visually stimulating, but outside it's like you are exposed not just to what you're seeing but what you might be hearing, what your skin might be feeling with the wind, what the air might be smelling, and that's all. That's like a secret potion, that's all going into you as a young person and it's helping kind of spark up your brain and send up those synapses for you to grow and explore and find adventure, make your own adventure. It really is a choose your own adventure kind of world outside?

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 13:54

Yeah, in your experience as a naturalist and educator, what have you seen change in children when they do spend that meaningful, long periods of time outdoors, especially when doing imaginative and open-ended play?

Susie Spikol: 14:07

Oh, what a great question. I love this. I spend a lot of time with children outside for long periods of time and I do see a change from kids once they come out. Like recess is short usually and it's just run around and get that energy out and that's great. But when you have them out for a longer period of time, they can really go deeper into their play and their play becomes more imaginative and there's a lot of conversation that happens imaginative and there's a lot of conversation that happens between children. So there's a lot of like social kind of emotional development that occurs communication, learning how to decide what you're going to play. There's also risk assessment that develops.

Susie Spikol: 14:48

So how is a child know if they can climb to the top of the rock? They have to decide for themselves, and so having that time outside is really essential for young children to develop where their boundaries are in terms of the risks they're willing to take, and I think that's really important and that's part of being outside. The landscape is typically uneven too, so they're using their whole body to move through it in a different way than they might be on a playground with set structures. So I think when I see kids spending time outside for longer periods of time. They're going deeper, the play is more meaningful, there's a lot more imagination and creativity that happens in it, there's a lot of conflict resolution that happens and there's a lot of motor skills that are occurring.

Susie Spikol: 15:37

So I'm all about it, and I hope other people can see that and will want to encourage their schools or their own families to spend longer periods of time outside. And that's not even talking about all of the amazing physical things that happen to a child when they're outside physically, or any human, the vitamin D that we're getting, the extra oxygen that we're breathing, the time in the fresh air. Remember like your grandparents would be like send your kids outside and they'll sleep like a baby. Well, there's some truth to that. You know. It is good for us to be outside and moving our body in the fresh air and being in the sunshine and having our senses waking up. So, yeah, go outside if you want to sleep well.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 16:21

You mentioned recess and I've seen a shift, a change in recess time. A lot of conflicts, a lot of boredom. I'm bored, I don't want to go to recess. Can I just stay inside? Can I bring the tablet outside? I don't have anything to do. And then, coming back from recess, it was filled with problem solving. Now we have a lot of issues, a lot of conflict, a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, and so there were just a lot of problems that were occurring that it almost felt like why are we doing this to ourselves? How do you think that nature-based play can help children navigate the social challenges of recess more successfully?

Susie Spikol: 17:00

Yeah, I think it's good for us to think about what our schoolyards look like now. They have a lot of installed play structures which are great, but they're also pretty rote. And what happens is you have kids like waiting in line to kind of use a part of the play structure. They want to swing, so they had to wait in line until somebody else gets off the swing. And that's a lot of times where you see conflict happen and after a while, even though those play structures are really fun, there can be like oh, I've done the slide, I've done them, I've gone from here to there.

Susie Spikol: 17:35

I am a really big advocate for loose parts on our playground and the loose parts are things that are not nailed down, that are movable, that have a lot of capacity for creative thinking Sticks and boards and rocks and cardboard.

Susie Spikol: 17:52

And what about if you have a lot of pavement, you know big chalk or bubbles or jump ropes, if you're in a kind of traditional play area, if you have the capacity in your school or in your neighborhood to kind of step out of the playground area and step to the edges? That's where those loose parts really are and that's where nature play really can happen and that might help alleviate some of those conflicts that we're seeing. But I also think we live in a world where kids aren't outside as much as they used to be, and if you're not outside, you might not know how to be outside, and so it's really up to us, as parents and caregivers and educators, to model that. And if you have fixed structures in your play area, you can introduce loose parts to it. Maybe put out some pots and pans, put out some old spoons, bring in a whole basket of pine cones or acorns or leaves. I think there's ways to introduce it into your play area. Great ideas.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 18:57

You talk about how imaginative outdoor play can empower kids who may struggle in school or social settings. So what have you seen in terms of how nature-based play affects children's confidence, especially for those who may be feeling overlooked or misunderstood?

Susie Spikol: 19:11

I love this question because I have seen it. You know, being a naturalist working in so many different schools. I usually go into a classroom and have classroom time and then come back and we do some fields time and when I'm in the classroom the teachers usually say there's always like one or two kids that are they're going to be trouble outside. But what I find is that a lot of times those kids that are inside, in the structure of those four walls, in the system of the school, they play a specific kind of role. You know you hit there. They're the kid that causes trouble. But when you go outside, a lot of times those kids can become real leaders. A lot of times kids that are hyper aware so somebody who might have ADHD and they're hyper aware. They're seeing a million things outside. They're the kids that are spotting the cardinal because they're seeing things in a really fast and an exciting way and they've got the sharp senses.

Susie Spikol: 20:09

There's something calming about being outside too. We'll just stop and listen and do some breathing and looking. It's kind of like tuning in and that can help reset and help self-regulate somebody. Those deep breaths, breathing in the fresh air, smelling the roses I mean the act of smelling a flower. It smells good, but it's also a deep breath. It's a great chance for teachers and caregivers to press a reset button, to take a few deep breaths. Look up at the sky what colors are you seeing? What birds are you seeing? It's hard work being a teacher and a caregiver and a parent, and so that outside time, when the children are busy running and playing, it's a chance for you also to kind of reset and self-regulate through some deep breaths.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 20:56

How long do you think it takes for children to get acclimated to unstructured outdoor play?

Susie Spikol: 21:03

Yeah, that's a great question. It can take a while, especially if it's something that they've never done before in a great question. It can take a while, especially if it's something that they've never done before in their home life. It can feel unsettling to them. I've been surprised over the course of my 30 plus years being a naturalist, at the beginning of my career when I would ask kids to sit on the grass, no problem. But now there are some kids that maybe have never sat on grass before and it can feel uncomfortable. So you know, we've started to bring pads with us so that kids that might not want to sit on the grass can sit on something different, and it's just sort of thinking about all the different ways that you can help kids kind of feel more comfortable. It can take a while.

Susie Spikol: 21:45

You know I would start with small bites, maybe five minutes to start with. Then you know, really having that tuning into those senses, what are you seeing? Find five things that you hear. What are you smelling? What does that smell like? It's great development for language to have to put words to what you hear, to what you smell, to how the air feels on you, the temperature. That's all great language development.

Susie Spikol: 22:12

It's a great chance to maybe have a book that you're reading out loud to your family or your class about nature. There's a ton of mouse books for kids, like, have you ever noticed how many books have little mice as heroes? So just for example, something like Stuart Little, you might be reading it out loud in your class and then you know, when you're outside and a kid is like I'm bored, I don't know what to do, you can be like well, what would Stuart Little do? You know where would Stuart Little go? So using literature to help kind of plant those seeds of imagination while they're outside can be really helpful for a kid and it maybe even can grow into sort of a bigger project for your classroom.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 22:52

With summer approaching, many parents are looking for simple ways to keep their kids engaged, without screens or any complicated preparations. What materials would be great to have on hand in the house so that it could support that spontaneous, independent play?

Susie Spikol: 23:07

Yeah, I would say maybe you could go thrifting. Just get a few pots and pans, a few big spoons. Some love hand lenses or magnifiers. You know that idea that a kid can look through a lens and see something small expanded. I think it's sort of magical. It's sort of that's where a lot of imagination can happen. Just walking around with little hand lens and I would gather up some kind of journal material like a notebook, a pencil and paper colored pencils. Something my children and I would do together is we would keep a running journal, we'd be outside and then we would come back and we would both draw on the same paper what we saw and experienced. They're a great memory for us of just simple times outside. It might be.

Susie Spikol: 23:57

If you don't live in a place where you have backyard or edges to go to, that might be a great thing for you to kind of think about before the summer. Where can we go? Is there a park nearby? Is there a sliver of land nearby? Is there a neighborhood we can go walking in, that kind of stuff? So I would gather that. And then for outdoors you don't really need much. You know, sunscreen, bug spray, clothing and that can get dirty. It's sort of messy place.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 24:25

So yeah, a little bucket. We would always have like a little bucket when we'd go on walks and the kids always collected, you know, like a really cool rock, a pretty shell pine cone that was like extra long or something Interesting little sticks and they love to bring those back and I noticed that, you know, even at recess the kids would dig. And we live in Florida and sometimes, because our area used to be underwater, when the kids would dig in the sandy soil in the back of the school for recess, sometimes they come up with shark's teeth and so they would be like here's another shark's tooth and they were like, oh cool, so they would start collecting those things and so being able to start little collections, oh my gosh.

Susie Spikol: 25:04

I love that idea, lisa. That is so right on. It's just so perfect A little bucket and maybe a cardboard box where they're putting their collection. If you want to go a little bit further, you could get a little cardboard box that you put little dividers in, so there's like a section for the rocks, a section for if you're lucky enough to live where shark teeth are. I think that is great and you can keep it outside or inside. Something that we would do too is we would have sort of a table inside the house and it was our seasonal nature table and my kids would bring back like feathers that they found and that would go on the table and it would change for each season for what we were finding outside. It's really simple. It's containable. If you are worried that they might bring something back in your house that you might not want, you can always tell them. That's a great thing for your outside nature area. But you know stones and sticks and feathers and shark's teeth. I'm really impressed about the shark teeth. I'm jealous.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 26:04

We have a we're shark's tooth capital of the world, and so we find shark's teeth all over the place, which is a fun thing.

Susie Spikol: 26:10

I've been looking for pirate teeth. Maybe I should have been looking for shark teeth, shark's teeth.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 26:15

Yeah, is there any go-to activity? Maybe something that is like a big hit? You know something that boys and girls of different ages consistently love?

Susie Spikol: 26:25

Yeah, it's definitely small world creation. I see that across the board, from young childhood up through what I like to call middle childhood, which is about to about 10 years old.

Susie Spikol: 26:36

It's really like building tiny little worlds outside, making small little houses and small little villages and different spots in the area, and I see that being a winner for kids of all ages, boys and girls, and a project I've done with some schools in my area is we make these small villages and they become like a world. You know Minecraft and that's such a world building, but it's flat and if you're building an actual tiny little house, it's all your hands, it's all of your senses, it's fine motor skills, it's gross motor skills and it's defined by the child, it's their creation. I just love the whole concept of small worlds for children.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 27:23

Where could people get this book?

Susie Spikol: 27:24

Yeah, so the book is available through all bookstores. Your independent bookstores were online sellers and I hope people really enjoy it. It's really meant as a guide for families to work together through teachers and caregivers to use as a resource. It's just sort of the starting spot. Who knows, you know you might read it and be like, oh, we're going to make this, but it becomes something else and I hope people really recognize that that is what our kids need.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 27:53

Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your passion and bringing nature and imagination back into children's lives, which is infectious, and your book is truly a gift for families and educators to head outside and start seeing where their imaginations take them.

Susie Spikol: 28:09

Thank you, and this has just been such a pleasure for me. I am such a fan of your podcast and I do love that. It is the brighter side of education. It's really good to remember there are so many positive things happening in the world of education and you're bringing them to light, so I really thank you for that.

Dr. Lisa Hassler: 28:28

If you have a story about what's working in your schools that you'd like to share, you can email me at lisa at drlisahasslercom, or visit my website at wwwdrlisahasslercom and send me a message. If you like this podcast, subscribe and tell a friend. The more people that know, the bigger impact it will have. And if you find value to the content in this podcast, consider becoming a supporter by clicking on the supporter link in the show notes. It is the mission of this podcast to shine light on the good in education so that it spreads, affecting positive change. So let's keep working together to find solutions that focus on our children's success.