Teaching Your Kids To Explore The Outdoors
Going outside is good for the whole family–it improves mental health, physical well being, stimulates learning and can be a great bonding exercise. The outdoors offers so many options for families to get exploring. Depending where you live, a short trip to the park may be the most convenient for your family, or maybe you have access to a lake, beach, farm, or forest.
My family lives in Orange County, California, and we’re in between the mountains and the beach. We try to get out to the beach every once in a while and let the kids play in the sand and splash on the shore. But more often, we head over to the local city parks and some regional parks that are close by. My kids are little, so they typically gravitate towards the playground first, but I’ve made it a point to stroll around the park to encourage them to discover the nature that’s around them. Sometimes it looks like rolling down a grassy hill and other times it’s jumping up to grab low hanging leaves. Either way, it’s become a norm for our family and opened up lots of conversations of discovery about the world around us.
Being outdoors is a classroom of its own and children are sponges. The sky is quite literally the limit when it comes to experiences out in nature. As the seasons change and the weather is more gracious, taking the opportunity to make it a habit to be outdoors is a wonderful way to teach our children about the world around us, whether that be about plants, insects, life cycles, weather, pollution, or erosion. It is also a springboard to teach our children to be good stewards to the earth. Here are some tips you can use when you explore the outdoors with your kids.
“A little dirt never hurt”
I must confess that I was not really good at welcoming anything related to the word “dirty” when I had my first child. I was super strict and kept her from touching anything dirty or even letting her feet touch the ground without shoes when we were outside. Now as a mom of 3, I let my kids take off their shoes to run in a field and get grass tangled in their braids from rolling around–and you know what? It makes me feel genuinely happy. I realized I had to let go of the discomfort of my kids getting dirty and allow myself to give them permission to freely explore being outside without borders (..at least to a certain degree).
If you can, try to fight through the feelings of disgust when you see a bunch of slugs after it rains, and avoid big reactions that may cause your child to tense up or feel scared. If you’re up for it, try to get your hands dirty and explore with your kids. If not, encouraging your child or letting them see you’re supporting them gives them confidence to tap into their curiosity.
Model exploration
Every time I bring my 2-year-old to the playground, I’m slightly envious of the parents who can just sit at the park bench and relax as their children play. My child never lets me sit down, in fact, she always insists that I play with her. So I hold her hand as she walks across the balance beam, I watch her climb this thing and that, and I hold her hand when she races with her sister so she can go “faster”.
When we bring our kids outdoors, doing it hand-in-hand shows them what it looks like to be explorers. Unlike sitting at the park bench watching our kids on the monkey bars, we get to play an active role in modeling the behavior we want our kids to follow.
Start by making it a habit to go outdoors with your kids. It can be your backyard, a local park, or some other space that gives you and your child opportunities to explore. Then experience the space being an observer. Look at the plants, the insects, the animals around. Smell the scent of the pine needles in the woods or the dewy grass. Take off your shoes and dig your toes into the sand. As you make observations, point them out to your child and create the space for conversation, questions, and curiosity. You can even ask questions out loud that you don’t have the answer for and then go back home and dig into the topic more. As you model exploration, your child will naturally follow suit.
Use your 5 senses
The very nature of exploring calls for us to use our 5 senses: listen, taste, touch, feel, and smell. Explore different spaces outdoors that provide carrying sensory experiences. Going to the woods to search for different variations of leaves in their texture, color, shape and size teaches different tree families and plant diversity. A trip to a garden can provide an array of flowers with different scents and smells. If you know your child is curious about insects, bring them to the backyard to dig up some dirt with their hands and touch the different textures in the soil. You can play a game of “I spy” and change it up once in a while to “I smell”, “I hear”, “I feel”, “I taste”. Kids can also participate in a fun nature scavenger hunt or get involved with gardening in the backyard. There are so many fun ways to explore nature through the senses, and this is one of the best ways to tap into what your child likes or maybe even stretch their comfort zone with new sights, sounds, and textures.
You May Also Like:
Spring Activities To Do At Home (Boredom Busters!)
Staying Active With The Whole Family This Summer
sources:
https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/how-to-explore-the-outdoors-with-your-kids
https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/encouraging-kids-to-enjoy-nature-with-all-of-their-senses
