Ways to use nature as a science lab

Always remember, even though a child is not talking they are learning. They learn from their senses and from observing you as their role model. If you are afraid of touching things in nature or getting dirty, your child will most likely follow your lead. If you are curious and adventurous, your child will be curious and adventurous.

 

Suggestions for stimulating infants and toddlers senses through nature:

 

Sight:

• See nature from a variety of angles – lay on the ground with baby on top or beside you looking up at the world around her (talk about the clouds moving, the wind blowing), sit on the ground and talk about what is front of you (a tree trunk, spider walking, grass, etc…), stand and walk to see the difference in types of leaves (talk about the different colors or shades – she is absorbing all of this vocabulary)

• Find books with pictures of trees, clouds, grass, insects, flowers, etc… and find them in your neighborhood, yard or park – point to the picture in the book and the “real” object with lots of excitement. She is absorbing all of this vocabulary and will begin to make connections between print and life this way

• Play shadow tag with another adult while you hold baby.

• Play hide and go seek with another adult behind trees are bushes.

Hearing:

• Listen for birds singing in nature and point out where the sound is coming from, then take her to a zoo or bird sanctuary to see birds up close. Find birds in books and make the sound for her that you heard in nature. Purchase a CD of birds singing to use as a transition time cue (time to take a bath or time to go to bed).

• Listen for crickets and frogs in your yard or near a pond. Go on a field trip to the bait and tackle shop to see, hear and touch (if you dare, wash those hands good) crickets that are being sold for fishing bait. Find crickets in a book and try to make the chirping sound on her belly.

• She will probably try to imitate the sound of the cricket or your chirping noise. Make sure to follow her imitation with the same chirping sound she has just made – this helps her understand that we communicate through a variety of sounds. She will begin to notice that you “talk back” when she utters noise. She will begin to communicate faster this way.

Smell:

• Smell different kinds of flowers and do it with exaggeration. Talk about your nose. Say “nose” and touch her nose, then your nose. Say, “flower” and touch the flower, then help her touch the flower. Then repeat the action of smelling the flower again.

• Sniff tree trunks, leaves and grass – your modeling is the important thing here.

• When she gets a bit older, you can begin to introduce other smells in the environment and again sniff with exaggeration. She will be able to distinguish between good and bad smells by age two.

Touch:

• Touch leaves that are smooth and those that are prickly (being very careful, of course) – say, “Ouch” with the prickly leaf and rub the smooth leaf repeatedly. Rub her fingers across the leaves and use the appropriate vocabulary. Make sure they are not a poison oak, ivy or sumac plant.

• Find a larger leaf to use as a fan that can also tickle her nose when rubbed across. Rub the leaf on her toes and say, “I got your toes.” Rub in on her stomach and say, “I got your stomach.” Continue with other body parts. She will begin to see nature as something fun, cherished moments in time.

• Show her the leaf on the tree and how you can pull it off the tree to move it in different ways – place the leaf in a Ziploc bag and let her hold it. Placing the leaf in the baggy is important because everything goes in their mouths at this age.

• Touch a pine cone (if they grow near you) or other parts of trees that may be common in your part of the country. Important thing here is to name the object and help her touch the object to learn about its characteristics through touch, but no eating!

• Walk in the rain and splash together in puddles. Water is fascinating to infants and toddlers. By kindergarten, they will learn about floating and sinking, where water comes from and where it goes after it rains. Lots of experience in puddles and harmless rain showers is necessary to understand these concepts.

• Put up an umbrella in the rain and then take it away. Talk about what is happening and what you are hearing during this activity. Remember that she cannot talk but she is learning through your reactions, vocabulary and modeling.

• Walk in tall grass and walk in short grass. Your expressions should be different in each type of grass. Hold baby up to feel the grass without shoes. She may giggle and smile with the feeling of grass tickling her toes and maybe even her nose.

• Make a nature box where you can store sticks, rocks, leaves, tree bark, grass and other items you find. Keep all of these items stored in Ziploc bags and watch her very carefully while she “plays” with them (in the Ziploc bag). As she gets older, you will no longer need the Ziploc bags and you will be able to add the words to each object on index cards. This way she is excited about not only the “things” in nature but also, the words that identify those “things.
• Take her to the grocery store or your local farmer’s market to see, smell and touch fruits and vegetables
  

Taste:

• Visit a farm where vegetables or fruit trees are growing and make sure to take along a Baby Safe Feeder™ to let her taste the juices of goodness coming straight from our earth or plant a garden of your own.
• Let her touch the plants (if you are picking them yourselves) and take pictures of her beside each vegetable plant or fruit tree to put together in a book later on – this way you can add a picture of the actual food and how it looks when it is growing. You will be building amazing conceptual understanding through real life experience and teaching the importance of nature.
• Once she begins eating baby food, show her the actual fruit or vegetable she is eating as much as possible. You can let her hold an apple while you feed her applesauce or a carrot while she eats carrots. Tell her a story where the food grows, what color it is and how it grows. Optimal brain development depends heavily on your child’s diet. If you are able to tell your child where the food came from and how it grows into the package, you buy at the grocery store, then the food is nourishing to your little one’s brain. If you do not know these things, it is a processed food and not good for the little one’s brain development.Good luck with your continued adventures through nature. Observational skills are important for a variety of reasons and nature offers so many opportunities to hone these skills. The time you are investing in your little one’s cognitive thinking, vocabulary, observational and critical thinking skills will pay off with amazing returns in the future.