Nature puts children into deep thought, action, creativity and in expressing their own ideas. When children are involved in experiences with natural environments, they are fascinated, captivated and completely attentive to what is at hand. This exposure to nature can be as simple as going for a walk, playing in the yard, or hiking your neighborhood paddy fields. There are many rewards and advantages to all types of exposure to nature.
Adults can help children by providing natural environments to explore and adding tools to enhance explorations, such as shovels, magnifying glasses, pencils and paper, cameras, and related resources. Activities such as nature journaling nature, scavenger hunts, pond dipping, bird watching are some of the simplest things you could do with your child.
It is very important that we observe where and what the children are interested in and support those interests by asking open-ended questions. What did you discover? How does it feel? Some children might find butterflies fascinating where as others could find jumping in the puddles fun.
What does it look like? How does it move? What should we do? Ask questions that will encourage the children to observe and to describe their observations. It is vital that adults share the natural world with children by planning related activities, but it is important for children to have the opportunity to discover nature on their own. When children connect with nature and freely explore its components, they develop their own personal relationship with nature. It is this relationship that will carry meaning into their understanding of nature.
