Any activity that children do in nature can be educational for them. Although we do not realize, when we play with children, we are contributing our wisdom and experience from which they will make the most of one day, to get to know more than we do. Now, we must be cautious enough to push them to build, feed animals and take care of nature without being tempted to do all of us.
Today I will leave you some ideas of educational activities to enjoy nature as a family.
Cabin Construction
One of the things we can do with our children It is to build cabins. Children will delight in building these small shelters. You can help them with ideas but they should be the ones who build the cabin. We will be helping you to understand innate and instinctive desires for survival.We must help them whenever they are stuck at some point in the construction or when they ask us, it is about having fun and learning with it. The cabins can be built with elements and materials found in nature, such as stones, leaves, branches, trunks, we can also let them use recycled household items and do not use: old blankets, cardboard, cords, etc.
Collect minerals and fossils and study them
There are mineralogy clubs with which you can visit old mines and caves. In Spain you can visit two fossil and mineral deposits where your children will enjoy as authentic explorers. Observing well, you can find stones and remains of fossilized animal shells that will blow the imagination of our children.I recommend that you visit this website: senderitos.com where it indicates the deposits that are by province, surely there is one near where you are right now.
Find abandoned nests
We usually find them on tree trunks, hanging from the branches or on the ground (usually because they fall from the branches). If we find an animal nest, for a child it will be very interesting to investigate it thoroughly: what materials the animal has used to build it, what mechanism it has used to make it, what type of bird has done it, if there are remains of eggs ...We can invent a story of how the mother bird raised her chicks, explaining that she went to a valley to find worms to feed her babies, how she taught them to fly later and how they all flew together.
Observe small animals and insects
If you are on vacation in the country or near it, you can place a flat wooden board on the ground and return to the same place after two days; You will be surprised to see the amount of insects that will have used it as a refuge. You can visit the place with your children periodically and take notes on the different things that you are observing.The branches that fall from the trees are also a refuge for numerous species of insects and animals, from worms to beetles that will keep your children absorbed by observing their modus vivendi.
Your job will be to teach children to respect animals and insects without destroying their habitat. We can leave some breadcrumbs on the logs to observe how the ants immediately go to load everything they find.
Artists in nature
As we have done before, we can use what we find in a forest, park or field, to make a small work of art. A good idea is to always carry paper and colors with us so that children can paint and draw what they see. Another idea is that they paint stones with chalks, they can form a mural on the floor with some note or even indications to find the way back.Cooking in bonfires
In places where you can make fires, we can cook together endless things typical of bonfires. One of the things that I remember with nostalgia of my summers in the camps of the United States (the typical ones of You to Boston and I to California) were the punctured clouds in sticks that we found in the forest burned at the stake, if you have not tried it and your children either, I recommend it, a lot.
Another thing to cook in a bonfire and that I also learned in the United States camp, is to take a banana, make a slit in half, introduce a couple of chocolate dice and wrap it in aluminum foil. We puncture it on a branch and heat it to the fire until the chocolate is undone. Then you eat the banana with the chocolate in tablespoons, without peeling it and without taking it out of aluminum foil.
We can also cook potatoes and more vegetables, always wrapped in foil.
