How Awesome is the Autumn Season?

The leaves on trees are beginning to change in many parts of the country, prompting many children and caregivers to wonder and question what is happening outside. This is a perfect season to go outside and nuture children’s sense of wonder.

It doesn’t take much in the world of preschool supplies to help children explore the wild outdoors. Simple tools such as a magnifying glass, binoculars, a container for collecting specimens, a bag for simple nature items, a flashlight, a spoon for digging, and paper and pencil for recording information.

First, encourage young children to use their five senses to explore. Just taking time to listen to the sounds around connects them to nature. There may be birds singing, crickets chirping, or the crunching of the ground below their feet. This season brings lots of different scents and smells, too. A simple observation of what is right in front of them brings new insights to children. Play an I Spy game to further expand what children are seeing and observing. Use a sense of touch to get hands-on with nature, where safe. Tree bark feels different than any other surface. You can also discuss the weather and compare how it is different on various days.

There are many avenues to explore outside. The leaves changing on the trees are an easy example. You can collect leaves, compare their sizes, sort them by colors, and match similar ones. You can trace them, make leaf rubbings, and take them back inside for further examination with a magnifying lense. Then you can record observations of what happens to the leaves once they get inside. Look for decidous trees (ones that shed their leaves) and coniferous ones (evergreens). You can talk about how these trees are the same and different.

Allow lots of time for children to explore and be curious. Ask them open-ended questions that will encourage them to use language to talk about observations and ideas. Make comments and ask questions such as “I wonder what would happen if…” Children will often answer their own questions. If the answer is unknown, take time to look up the information later. Children construct knowledge based on their own experiences. Providing simple tools, the great outdoors, and some well positioned questions, provides rich experiences for them.

These nature experiences are not only important for children, but they are also necessary requirements from high-quality improvement systems. For instance, the ECERS-E: The Four Curricular Subscales Extension to the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-R), lists that natural materials be used beyond decoration to illustrate specific concepts, that children should be encourage to explore characteristics of natural materials, and adults should show appreciation, curiousity, and/or respect for nature when with children, to name a few. These factors help improve the quality of interactions between children and their caregivers and enrich their science experience.

So take advantage of this awesome season and head outdoors with the children to experience this sense of wonder in the changing seasons.