Outdoor education doesn’t just engage children in the curriculum or everyday play, it teaches life skills too. Mother Nature is a great teacher and getting kids outside to learn and early years play is good for their brains and their bodies.
School is very important, but it’s not the only setting where your children can learn. Contact with nature is more essential today given that children are spending nearly 8 hours a day using entertainment media and only 6 percent of children ages 9-13 play outside on their own.
We are at risk of losing an entire generation’s appreciation for how nature works and our love of nature and learning outdoors needs to remain healthy and productive.
True learning isn’t just about memorising history facts and solving math problems. Learning is an interactive process of analysing, questioning, and discussing – looking for new meanings and unique applications.
There are so many ways to teach our children the important things – not everything comes from inside a book!
Fresh air, exercise, and creative exploration are just a few of the benefits children can experience when they spend time outdoors. You can get outdoor play equipment that will benefit children to make them active outdoors which is important for their physical, cognitive, and social development.
How better to learn about the seasons, than to do it outside and seeing it up close and in person. Rustling the autumn leaves through our fingers. Jumping into those April showers and building with snow – it’s all important.
Digging the ground and learning about plants, the sun and how everything grows with the help of the sun. Playing with water play tables to see how waves are made, how water ripples and how items move in water. Feeling the cold air leave your body and watching the condensation that comes out of your mouth when you are breathing during the Winter weather.
It’s all about learning about life and nature whilst growing our children’s educational needs.
Lovely article. It's so important to get the children out into the fresh air and watch the seasons changing. I have an allotment and getting my three sons and granddaughter growing things on it has given them a love of being outdoors and watching nature around us.
Certainly is – we've been out digging up worms and jumpimg in puddles today – THIS weather in LANCASHIRE is great
So true, they should do so much more of this at school. Other than having a water table in reception class theres nothing they do now they are older
Loved reading this. My son is into gardening and we are planting flowers and pot plants all the time
My kids love been outside, they were lucky enough to spend lots of time on a family members farm untill it was recently sold
My kids love nature and exploring so this post really helped! Thanks a lot! 🙂
so very true! i love being outdoors with my little boy, he asks so many questions
Great post. Totally agree. My kids love being outdoors with nature
Very true – great post!
I use to love picking up Conker's and leaves then making collages out if them great fun
OFF down our local park – beautiful sunny day but oh so cold – family fun day with a nature walk – wonder what else we'll get upto
I read somewhere that in the latest edition of the Oxford Junior dictionary (aimed at school-age kids), lots of words to do with nature, such as bluebell, have been omitted as children nowadays don't have any use for these words. We adults need to do more to get our children engaged with nature.