Autumn is a magical season.
Wonderful nature has printed and dyed leaves with yellow, orange and red, making autumn nature full of various elements and colors.
Outdoor is a natural color palette, and you can experience the change of seasons with your children. Children can also experience a brand-new world in close contact with nature, exercise their observation, imagination and social skills…
Nature helps to improve baby’s observation
Carl Witt, the originator of early childhood education, once said [in education, it is better to broaden their horizons and cultivate their observation than cramming knowledge into children]. Taking babies to nature is a good way to broaden their horizons ~
However, many mothers will worry, take her out to play, can you do some what?
The following are my own activities to go out in autumn and cultivate observation in nature. Mom and Dad can claim them according to the situation of their babies:
Step 1 Take your baby to a picnic
For babies under 12 months old, going to a picnic is the simplest and most convenient.
Autumn is brisk and the game mat is laid on the grass. The baby will crawl around and open his curious eyes to observe everything outside.
Take the baby to nature, touch the leaves and smell the flowers, all of which can make the baby’s fine movements at this stage get better development.
Flowing streams, flying butterflies, colorful fallen leaves… Nature can give the baby a wider world, enrich the baby’s inner world and nourish the baby’s unique spirituality from the inside out.
2. Outdoor branch labyrinth
Children over 24 months old are energetic, vigorous and active, and need more challenging outdoor activities to make them not feel [bored]. Why don’t you give them a task-walk through the [branch] maze!
For children aged 3-4, you can try to design and build mazes with your parents, starting with the simplest design.
In the process of building a maze with branches, children may find that the outermost box is too small at first! At this time, the child will rebuild, expand the box in the outermost circle, and observe how big the box is needed to meet the requirements of the maze. It is in the process of constantly trying to think in this way that the child’s observation and practical ability are trained.
Nature Promotes the Development of Baby’s Imagination
Nature is the richest textbook. It uses nature as raw material and has inexhaustible wonderful inspiration. It can create interesting and fun parent-child games, promote sensory stimulation and enhance the imagination of babies in the process of playing.
1. Vegetable rubbings
0 ~ 3 years old is an important stage to stimulate the imagination of the baby. The cognition of the young baby is mainly obtained from practical experience, and the senses are stimulated through actual touch and observation. At this stage of the baby, the distinction between imagination and reality is very vague, and there is no restriction of realistic thinking. They are more likely to have unconstrained ideas.
Babies over 15 months old can start to try rubbings of vegetables and fruits. In autumn, there are many varieties of fruits and vegetables. We can guide babies to observe and recognize the types and colors of vegetables. At the same time, we can also let them play their brains and create rich patterns with vegetables and fruits of different shapes.
2. Fallen Leaves on the Grass
For babies over 24 months old, here is a specially recommended outdoor activity-deciduous earth painting.
I once walked my baby on the grass near my home and found a group of children watching curiously around an adult. When I looked closer, it turned out that the super childlike adult had picked up a lot of golden leaves and paved a huge car on the open ground.
Children are naturally imaginative and creative, but they just need the guidance and encouragement of adults. Fallen leaves and branches in autumn are the best artistic materials.
Mom and Dad can start with a simple pattern demonstration, such as a small flower.
The grass is drawing paper. Children can give full play to their imagination and spread various patterns with leaves on the ground. Believe me, children’s potential is beyond imagination, and the final product will definitely have surprises!
Nature, Improve Baby’s Social Ability
Outdoor activities are one of the most effective ways to exercise your baby’s social skills.
Generally speaking, children aged 2-3 still play parallel games, that is, each plays its own. By the age of 4-5, children begin to have more interaction and will invite other children to play games with themselves. Parents can create more such opportunities to let children interact.
1. Outdoor Treasure Hunt
I believe parents will take their children to parks or suburbs at ordinary times. Apart from loitering, are there any interesting activities in what that can improve children’s participation?
For children over 4 years old, outdoor treasure hunt is a great activity.
Before going outdoors, parents prepare an A4-sized treasure hunt list with pictures and names of [treasures] that their children need to find. For example, [NO.1 Red Maple Leaf], [NO.2 Snail], [NO.3 Round Stone], etc.
If there are many children together, you can also group them into groups and have a small competition. This kind of outdoor activity is not only interesting, but also enables children to try to cooperate with others in the game. When encountering differences, parents can guide children to learn to understand others and improve their ability to communicate with others.
2. Playing house in the dirt kitchen
[Playing house] is a role game. It is an activity in which children creatively imitate real life through imagination. It provides children with the opportunity to imitate and reproduce the relationship between people and lays the foundation for them to form good social communication ability.
Generally speaking, children over 16 months old begin to have the consciousness of role-playing games and appear [pretending] behaviors, such as pretending to be a microphone with an empty cup.
Bring some kitchen gadgets and spread tablecloths outdoors so that the children can prepare [food] separately. Bonfires made of branches, chocolate cakes made of mud… Children can fully enjoy the fun brought by nature.
In fact, there are still many games that can be played with children in nature. Nature’s help to children’s growth goes far beyond observation, imagination and social skills.
In the nature full of changes and unknowns, appreciating the wonders of nature, exploring and experiencing it heartily are indispensable chapters in children’s growth.
Touching the tadpole’s care by the stream, The happiness of running freely on the grass… is a gift that nature can only give children. It does not rely on manpower and gives life to these natural growth tracks, which is also the charm of nature. We follow nature and protect the pure nature. In fact, we also protect the baby’s future and the baby’s exploration of the world.