Outdoor Adventures for Your Daycare Centre: Learning Through Nature Play
As the owner of a daycare centre, you understand the importance of engaging with nature throughout childhood. Ask any adult how they liked to play as a kid, and there’s a good chance it involved nature in some way—whether that means climbing trees, building snow forts, or playing sports.
Outdoor play in natural settings contributes to the physical, emotional, and cognitive development of children. By encouraging movement, creativity, socialization, and imagination, nature play creates the perfect environment for children to learn and develop.
Gardening and Nature Exploration
Gardening and nature exploration are great ways to get hands-on experiences with the environment. Consider going on nature walks, encouraging the children to interact with their surroundings by observing wildlife, searching for animal tracks, or doing scavenger hunts.
When gardening, be sure to give the children as much hands-on experience as possible. Let them dig space for the plants, plant the seeds, and water the garden. As time goes on, you can track the plants’ growth with measurements and photos.
Learning about Seasons
Time can be a difficult concept for children to grasp. From minutes to years, little ones often find it challenging to grasp just how the passage of time works. Fortunately, the seasons are a perfect way to teach children about how time passes.
Incorporate lessons about seasons, weather, and the natural world into your daily lesson plans, being sure to align them with your educational goals. Rather than just staying inside and learning about seasons, be sure to take the children outside so they can experience the weather in real time! As the year transitions into new seasons, continue incorporating outdoor activities into your lessons so they can see the seasons change for themselves.
Safety Measures
As amazing as nature is, there are some risks during nature play that need to be accounted for. When creating lesson plans for nature play, it is crucial to create and maintain safety protocols. Safety is the key to curating a secure, enjoyable learning environment for everyone involved. Here are a few precautions you’ll want to implement:
- Ensure an adult is supervising play at all times.
- Ensure children are wearing proper safety equipment for the activity.
- Make sure the children are well-hydrated and have access to water at all times.
- Keep children protected from the weather. You can use Timesavr’s daycare app to communicate with parents, letting them know to dress their children in weather-appropriate clothing for the upcoming days.
Parent Communication
When children are building relationships with nature, it’s important for them to maintain those relationships no matter where they are. When the children leave your child care centre, their interactions with nature should be supported at home.
As such, it’s crucial to communicate with parents about the benefits of outdoor play, and encourage them to support these activities at home. With Timesavr, you can communicate with parents in real-time, sharing photos and videos of their children’s nature play and talking to them about the benefits of outdoor adventures.
Creating Outdoor Learning Spaces
For young children, classrooms and other indoor spaces can quickly become uninteresting. Rather than keeping young ones inside for lessons, consider designing outdoor learning spaces. These spaces facilitate both structured and unstructured play, maximizing learning potential and promoting mental, physical, and emotional development.
When designing an outdoor learning space for children, there are a few things to consider. Firstly, ensure the space is an adequate size and is suitable for various activities. Some safety precautions will also need to be followed: never leave children unattended in the space, and look out for hazards like sharp edges, unstable handholds, and broken equipment.
Upgrade Your Nature Play with the Timesavr App
Timesavr is a daycare app designed to keep parents connected with their child’s learning. Through the app, you can share outdoor experiences through photos, videos, text, and email, send reminders to parents on upcoming outings, and remind parents of any clothing or supplies their child will need to bring.
To learn more and try out the software for yourself, book your free demo today!