{Disclosure: We are thrilled to partner with Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota to share helpful information about early childhood development for children ages zero to three. A host of additional early childhood resources are available on the Children’s website.}
My kids are their absolute best selves when they are outside. In the woods, at the playground, in the water or just in the backyard – their happiness level is at its peak, and so is their activity level. There’s just so much to explore and so many challenges to conquer, that kids are inclined to move their bodies and push their brains when playing outside. In fact, research from Children’s Hospitals of MN shows that: “Brain development is ‘activity-dependent’…the electrical activity in every circuit — sensory, motor, emotional, cognitive— shapes the way that circuit gets put together.”
Since 80% of brain growth happens in the first three years, it’s critical to make sure their brains and bodies are active. Playing in nature has always been the best choice for my family for this. Most of our time outside is unstructured. Sure, we go to playgrounds and the kids learn “how to use” the different equipment, but we spend most of our time in free spaces that don’t have set expectations or rules around how to play. Their little brains have to work hard to create, imagine, discover and explore.
My kids, especially my daughter who seems to have mild anxiety, have always thrived outside imagining their own worlds. She finds calm in the sanctuary of nature. When she’s calm, she can learn better and experience deeper. She can do things outside she struggles with inside. It all seems to make the most sense to her when we’re in nature.
As parents, we spend a lot of time encouraging and answering questions when we’re outside. “What’s this Mommy?” “Why do they fly that way?” “How old is this tree?” But we also ask a lot of questions and talk about what we’re seeing and doing – we count pinecones, categorize the colors of things, explain why it rains (the best we’ve come up with on this one is that the flowers need a drink!) or spot shapes.
My kids have preferred to be outside since birth. I have spring babies so even at a few weeks old we’d spend hours outside laying in the grass looking at the trees above us and making up songs. Now that they’re a little older, along with all of the unstructured time, we have some fun activities that we do while in nature.
1. Go on a nature hunt. Sometimes this means trying to find something specific, like a star-shaped branch, or more general like collecting leaves in every color. The kids bring a pail, or paper bag, and we fill it with all of their treasures.
2. Go on a “waterfall hike.” We have a creek near our house that we regularly walk to, which has a faster moving section my kids call a waterfall. It’s a solid hike through the woods to get to the waterfall, where we can then sit and throw rocks or sticks into and see where they go.
3. Build fairy houses. Anything can become part of a fairy house! We gather up mosses, sticks, leaves, bark and flowers to create little homes for a forest fairy friends.
4. Bring it inside (responsibly). Sometimes we bring our collected treasures inside to give our home a little calm, natural touch. The kids love creating little pockets of nature we can all admire.
We all know Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of MN to be an incredible leader in healthcare, but they also have a wealth of resources to help you guide your child into the potential they already hold within them. You ARE your child’s greatest tool in learning and this month, we’re sharing a number of experiences from our team alongside the incredible amount of resources offered by Children’s. Find more information on the Children’s website.
