Portland rains for about half the year. If we waited for the sun, the children would see the garden in July and forget it by October. So the garden is open every morning it is not pouring, and quite a few mornings when it is.

The kit

Every child has waterproof trousers, a jacket and boots on a hook by the back door, labelled with their name. Parents bring them on day one and they live here. Nobody has to remember anything on a Tuesday.

The rules

There are only three, and the children know them better than we do.

• Twenty minutes outside, minimum, every day
• Puddles are for jumping in. Faces do not go in puddles
• Wet gloves get swapped, not endured

What happens out there

Mud kitchen, mostly. The sandpit turns into a river. The raised beds get checked for worms, which is a serious job in the toddler room. The kindergarten children keep a rain gauge and read it at circle time, and they have learned that an inch of rain is a lot more than it sounds.

Cold children are unhappy children. Wet children are usually delighted.

What it does

Children who go out every day sleep better at nap time and eat more at lunch. They also fall over more, get up faster, and stop asking whether it is going to rain, because it usually is.

What we ask of you

A spare set of clothes in the bag, and a bit of patience at pick-up when the boots are still damp. We dry what we can. The boots dry at home.