Nature in School by Amber Bendett @amberbendett

I admit, I'm a huge nature lover. Just the aesthetics of all things found in nature alone draws my interest. But, besides being beautiful to look at, research shows there are many benefits nature provides for children:

·      Fostering curiosity, exploration, imagination and patience.

·      Children learn important concepts in science through sensory exploration of the outdoors, (physical properties of natural materials such as soil, rocks, sticks, leaves and water).

·      Helps children release energy and be less stressed, which allows them to focus.

·      Enhances young children's language development. Children will inquire about the names of the new things they investigate and they seek words to describe the processes they observe.

·      Provides opportunities to be outside and more physically active.

If I had it my way, I would rather skip the books and go explore daily. But, since that can't work every single day, we bring lots of nature into our school setting. We happen to live on a small farm, which makes it easy to learn from nature as part of our every day, especially as we tend the garden or care for the farm animals. Living on a farm or on a large piece of property is definitely not necessary for learning from nature.

Some of our favorite ways to bring nature into our school days—

Nature walks: At your local park, yard, neighborhood, beach, river, lake, etc. As we walk, we gather interesting items from nature and discuss their attributes.

Create a nature display in your home: On the top of a cabinet, we gather all the nature items we have found over time. When these items are on display in a place where we spend most of our time, the children can examine findings as they wish. Having a microscope or magnifying glass available makes for much more engagement.

Nature journal: Typically, we bring nature findings to the table to study. We use dictionaries, nature books, or YouTube to learn more about our findings. Then, using colored pencil or watercolor, the children illustrate their item and then label or note their new knowledge. Recently, the kids were gifted polaroid cameras, so to mix things up, we brought our cameras along for our nature walk. The kids loved taking pictures of plants or animals along the way. Instead of bringing the nature inside, we simply taped the photos to their nature journal and followed the same concept for nature journaling.

Art: Using seashells, clay, sticks, sand, and leaves to create art is a great way to incorporate nature into your school days. Instead of using artificial flowers, we opt for real petals when creating art. Not to mention, it's cost efficient.

Mud kitchen: A few years ago, I commissioned my brother-n-law to build a small mud kitchen for our children. At the time, we lived in a different home, without a big yard to explore. By creating an outside kitchen, the children could gather mud, sand, leaves, flowers, or rocks to create various "soups or pies". To this day, at ages six and eight, it remains one of their favorite outside activities.

Baking: Using edible flowers or herbs in the kitchen is such a fun and memorable experience. We like to incorporate nature in our food in the Spring, when garden studies happen naturally, and flowers are abundant. My children particularly loved the fruit and flower mini pizzas we created.

I truly hope these fun ideas inspire you to bring nature into your school days.