The First Baptist Church of Clarendon Child Development Center's goal is to transform our current outdoor play space into Certified Nature Explore Outdoor Classroom. Certified Nature Explore Outdoor Classrooms are dynamic, nature-based play and learning spaces that support whole-child development and learning across the curriculum.

In the interim, the FBCC CDC has a transitional outdoor classroom. In our Outdoor Classroom you can find many of the areas found in a Certified Nature Explore Outdoor Classroom.

  • Children engage in pretend play exploring family narratives, creating unique recipes, and sharing meals in our Mud Kitchen.
  • Pretend play expands in our Drama Area, where children are actively experimenting with the social and emotional roles of life.
  • Children express and represent what they observe, think, imagine, and feel through art in our Art Area.
  • There children use natural and man-made materials to explore the feel, textures, and colors found in nature.
  • Children also have a similar opportunity to explore sounds, rhythms, and beats in the same way when in our Music Area.


In our Loose Parts Area, children are invited to use natural materials in creative ways. Children use the acorns, pinecones, twigs, and logs to tell stories of pinecone people, to play a game of tic-tact-toe, or to cross from one end of the ocean to another. Often children build team working skills as they strategize on how they can move a log or stump that may be just as big as them.

  • Children strengthen their immune systems and extract the scientist from within when exploring the rich soil found in our Digging Area.
  • Our Garden offers another opportunity for our children to develop reasoning, planning, and organizational skills. Children participate in discussion about why certain seeds can be planted during specific seasons, how some vegetables cannot be planted near others, and the importance of bees, butterflies, and worms in our garden.
  • Similarly, children learn about the animals found in nature and how we are designed to co-exist with other creatures such as the birds in our community. Through this we create an inviting space for the birds (and squirrels) in our Bird Sanctuary. There we have a birdbath, bird (and squirrel) feeders, and birdhouses.
  • Large muscle skills develop as children dig, pour, sift, and scoop in our Sandbox. There children engage their senses, they touch the soft sand, explore its texture, pile it up and make structures. Often children immerse themselves in the experience allowing them to focus, improving concentration.