Nature is beneficial to young children's development in every way- intellectually, social-emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
During the fall months of preschool we joined together in activities that fostered a love and appreciation of nature. Beginning with the exploration of sunflowers, the preschoolers looked closely, smelled, touched, and observed the flowers before painting their own sunflower portrait.
After the flowers began to wilt the preschoolers tried pulling out the dried seeds- in which they found many, many small worms! This was a great experience for some of the children that were initially scared of bugs and worms. They were able to look closely and handle these worms in a safe way to see that they were not harmless and in fact were quite fascinating.
"Look! I found some nature"
Play-doh is an excellent way to combine our love for nature with some fun fine motor work with nature loose parts. Aside from fine motor development they are also developing hand-eye coordination and expressing their creativity. Children can learn so much from these real life objects as they manipulate and use them in a variety of ways.
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| "This is a bunny castle. These are the bunny fangs that don't let anyone in" |
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| "This is a city. These are the tall buildings" |
