Taking Play Outside

Materials: Yarn, string, ribbon, nature (leaves, grass, feathers), strong forked branch

Branch Weaving instructions

Materials: All of your senses

A Sit Spot is visited regularly to cultivate awareness, expand senses and study patterns of local plants, birds, trees, and animals. The practice supports mindfulness, builds routine and increases focus.

Check out this video: Sit Spot

Extension: Create a sound map at Sit Spot connecting it to literacy.

Teach your children how to slow down, use their senses and observe what is around them more closely.

Materials: frames

Taking A Closer Look instructions

Activity: Choose a species and place. Count the number of different species there are in a predetermined time limit e.g. 24 hours. Collect data and record/graph. Discuss and track over time to determine if a particular species is thriving.

Resource: Whistler Naturalists BioBlitz

Natural Materials: acorns, sea glass, sticks, logs, tree cookies, shells, feathers, seed pods, leaves, fresh and dried flowers, pine cones, chestnuts

Activities:

• sort, create patterns, create shapes

• representation of the value of number using natural materials and creating number and number sentences visually i.e. pinecones=100, leaves=10

For more ideas, check out:

Outdoor Play with Loose Parts

Make usable garden compost from food waste and worms!

How To Make A Worm Bucket instructions

Materials: Sticks, clay or playdough, tape

1. Get stick or bracelet ready to stick items on.

2. As you go on a nature walk and see or experience something of interest, attach a piece of nature to your stick or bracelet. (i.e: small pebble)

3. At the end of the day, touch each item and tell the story

Visit: Making Story Sticks

1. Have a discussion about components of a legend. Discuss the kinds of settings and characters as they relate to place.

2. Go for a nature walk. Record names of physical features that are visible in the area looking high and low. Record names of plants and animals that are part of the local area.

3. Discuss that a legend originates from the local environment which explains why we wouldn’t use places or animals from another country in our legend if we were telling a local story.

4. Brainstorm list of local physical features and animals as a group.

5. Create an oral story about how a feature or animal came to be.

Think imaginatively about the flora/fauna of the forest by using metaphors.

For example, "This isn't a fern, this is a giant's toothbrush."

"This isn't a mushroom, this is a gnome's footstool."

"This isn't a tree stump, this is the gatekeeper of the forest."

Lots of ideas on how to bring nature indoors.

How to make a paper bag

NATURE JOURNAL

Materials: 3 brown paper bags, hole punch, ribbon/string, scissors

• Place bags on top of one another, fold into a booklet, cut off the ends to create openings, hole punch and string ribbon to tie together.

• Note: you can punch holes on the other side so that the journal can be tied closed. Reinforce these spots with tape or paper before hole punching so that the ribbon doesn’t tear through the paper when tying.

Go on a nature walk and use the book to document what is observed and found. Store found nature objects in the pockets of the jouranl pages. These journals serve as really great keepsakes and can hold a limitless amount of nature stories.

This CBC article explains how "risky play in early childhood can help develop a child’s self-confidence, resilience, executive functioning abilities and even risk-management skills."

Use found materials in nature to create art in the tradition of Andy Goldsworthy.

Andy Goldsworthy-Land Art

Magical Land Art

Materials: clear contact paper or Plastic Wrap, an assortment of flowers and cardboard.

Window Flowers instructions

Materials:flowers/leaves, pounding tool (rock, hammer), heavy weight paper or fabric.

1. Place flower onto paper or fabric

2. Cover with another piece of paper/fabric

3. Gently pound with a rock or hammer

4. Remove top layer to reveal flower print