End of Summer Activity for Parents and Children:
Summer Outdoor Exploration
By Claudia Cázares
The purpose of this activity is to nurture your child’s development and expand on their creative play. Children learn more when activities are introduced during spontaneous unstructured play. But always remember to have fun during play time.
Age Group: This activity can be adapted for all ages
What you do:
As the summer season is wrapping up, I invite you to take the children out and explore the outdoors. Exploring the outdoors will allow you and the little ones to connect with nature. You may walk around the park or your neighborhood. Describe what you see or hear, and allow your child to see, smell, and feel different natural materials. You can also implement a nature hunt, or collect nature materials, such as colorful leaves, different size rocks, pine cones, sticks, etc. Remember we are saying good bye to summer and soon welcoming the fall season.
Help Build Vocabulary:
Help your child expand their vocabulary by using new words. Here are a few that you can start with:
What they learn:
Physical activity – walking is great way to get your child use to physical activity which develops their large muscles and motor skills.
Make observations – by pointing out things in nature you are teaching your child to be observant of their natural surroundings.
Connecting with nature – children gain an appreciation for the beauty and wonder of nature.
Share their observations and communicate their thoughts – expression of how they see the world and how they feel about it is an important life skill.
Explore – children naturally want to explore, joining them and engaging with them in their exploration will strengthen your bond and build great memories.
Discovery – discovering new things and objects will inspire your child to ask questions, a great school readiness skill to support their learning.
The purpose of this activity is to nurture your child’s development and expand on their creative play. Children learn more when activities are introduced during spontaneous unstructured play. But always remember to have fun during play time.
Age Group: This activity can be adapted for all ages
What you do:
As the summer season is wrapping up, I invite you to take the children out and explore the outdoors. Exploring the outdoors will allow you and the little ones to connect with nature. You may walk around the park or your neighborhood. Describe what you see or hear, and allow your child to see, smell, and feel different natural materials. You can also implement a nature hunt, or collect nature materials, such as colorful leaves, different size rocks, pine cones, sticks, etc. Remember we are saying good bye to summer and soon welcoming the fall season.
Help Build Vocabulary:
Help your child expand their vocabulary by using new words. Here are a few that you can start with:
- four seasons
- five senses
- explore/ exploration
- nature
- observe/observation
- natural material
- environment
- neighborhood
What they learn:
Physical activity – walking is great way to get your child use to physical activity which develops their large muscles and motor skills.
Make observations – by pointing out things in nature you are teaching your child to be observant of their natural surroundings.
Connecting with nature – children gain an appreciation for the beauty and wonder of nature.
Share their observations and communicate their thoughts – expression of how they see the world and how they feel about it is an important life skill.
Explore – children naturally want to explore, joining them and engaging with them in their exploration will strengthen your bond and build great memories.
Discovery – discovering new things and objects will inspire your child to ask questions, a great school readiness skill to support their learning.
Check out the PDF file of this activity below:
| end_of_summer_activity.pdf |
