A child’s first teacher (after their mother) is nature. It’s a good idea to not go too long without incorporating some nature time. It is always a welcome and refreshing break from indoor activities, worksheets, and even playing with toys. If you started a nature journal during our bird feeder activity, now is the time to pull it out for this activity. If you didn’t, this is a great time to start one.
Materials:
- A notebook, journal, or scrapbook
- Colored pencils
- Tape
- Magnifying glass
- A bag for collecting treasures
- A camera (phone camera is fine) for taking pictures of wildlife you don’t want to disturb
- Time for an extended walk outdoors
- An outdoor space that is as “natural” as possible
- The internet or reference books for identification
Even urban areas have parks and green spaces. If you live in a city, look online for parks that highlight “native” trees, plants, and flowers. Try to expand this walk beyond your normal neighborhood stroll. Check with your town’s Parks & Rec Department for a map of greenbelts that usually have walking trails and unmanicured vegetation. Try a local pond or lake. As much as possible, seek a place with native and wild-growing plants rather than manicured gardens.
NOTE: If you live in a place with poison ivy or poison oak, make sure you know what these look like before you go, and teach your child to recognize and not touch them.
This is an informal activity designed to help you notice and delight in the natural world around you. As you walk, observe everything around you. Collect interesting leaves from trees or bushes, examples of wildflowers (if allowed in that location), or fascinating rocks. If you find birds, insects, or other animals, take their picture and observe their behavior. Look closely at the bark of trees with your magnifying glass. Notice how different the bark on different trees is.
When you get home, lay out your collection: both your physical samples and your digital photos, and see what you have found! Look closely again with the magnifying glass.
Colored pencils are the perfect tool for sketching in a nature notebook. Draw pictures of your finds and/or tape them into your notebook. Look them up on the internet or in a book and try to identify them. What tree did the leaf come from? Is it native to your area? What is that wildflower called? If you identify an item, help your child label the items in their notebook.
You can print out the photos that you took and put those in the notebook, or just use the photos as a reference to draw pictures of the wildlife you “captured.” Look these critters up as well. Try to learn one new fact about each one.
Teaching moments:
- Teach your child what an ecosystem is: all the living and nonliving aspects of an environment. Point out the non-living components of the ecosystem you visit:
- Air
- Water
- Rocks
- Soil
- In addition to teaching your child about the wonder and variety of nature, this is the perfect activity for teaching respect for nature. Explain that you will leave the insects and other animals in their home environment and only observe and photograph them.
- Talk to your child about how all the aspects of an ecosystem relate to one another: the insects eat the plants, the birds eat the insects, the soil is a home for insects and a place for plants to grow, and the water nourishes all the plants and animals.