Inspire Young Minds with Nature

As schools prepare to break up for the summer holidays, ACS Cobham Lower School teacher, Gwendoline Sandow, shares her tips for how to keep young children entertained, while they continue developing important learning skills. And, importantly, while having fun, in nature!

When it comes to children, it’s important to remember that they are naturally learning a lot of skills organically through their playtime. By encouraging your children to partake in creative and fun activities, and by presenting opportunities for discovery or conversation, they will naturally keep developing – getting outside always helps too! Here are my favourite summer-themed activities:

Learn how nature works

There are a range of simple tasks you can do with your child to help increase their understanding of nature. For example, you could make a water run using recycled bottles to show them how water flows and the fundamentals of gravity. Cut the bottle in half lengthways, with the bottom removed so the water can flow from one end to the other. Run water through the bottle and play around with the angle of the tilt so your child can see how this affects how quickly the water runs. A simple task, but great for maths and science skills, as well motor skills and collaboration.

If you have a garden, or you are visiting a local forest, play ‘what lives here’, tasking your child with finding the different animals and living creatures in the area. As well as encouraging them to use their intuition and to explore, this can help develop language capabilities, help their understanding of sustainability and also increase empathy.

For a fun mini-science lesson, put some food colouring into a glass of water and then place a celery stick into it – some flowers will work too. Watch as the celery takes in what is in the water: colouring, but also water and nutrients.

Get creative with nature

Collect leaves from the garden and make prints by painting one side and pushing them onto paper; you can then turn the leaves into characters and animals. You can also make a picture using tools from nature: make a frame out of sticks on the floor, then use leaves, grass, mud – anything – to create a self-portrait or any picture your child wants.

As well as sparking creativity, these types of activities can help your child develop language skills, as they communicate what they are making, as well as fine motor skills, as they refine their artistic ability

Helping nature

Learning to support our planet and all its creatures is a skill that everyone needs to learn, and what better way to develop empathy and learn about the environment than through playing outside!

When you’re at home, you could make a bee bath, which is essentially a bee water feeder. Just like humans, water is crucial for a bee’s health, and also enables them to feed their bee babies. To make the bee bath, go for a walk to collect small pebbles, place them in a shallow bowl and add just enough water so that the tops of the pebbles are dry for the bees to sit on while they drink. Put the bowl outside for the bees to enjoy!

Get moving in nature

Keeping active over the holidays is important not just for a child’s physical health, but for their mental health too. Encourage them to get outside, make a den or go on a scavenger hunt. You could also go on a ‘walk with purpose’ where you count how many birds or trees you see, and stop to identify the species.

Ultimately, my best advice to ensure your children learn and develop over the holidays is to not overthink it too much. At this stage of their lives, children are naturally learning and growing every single day; all you need to do is to try to keep their brains and bodies stimulated with a broad variety of activities, using the natural resources around you as much as possible.