Nature Activity for Toddlers in the City

     My son loves to go on a walk… We try to get out in the stroller every day. The same old streets and houses never get old to him. For me though, I like to come up with things to make them a little more interesting!

     Here’s a fun nature-ish activity I did with my son and his cousin: Leaf Hunt!  

     You can work on learning colors, shapes, textures, sizes, smells and more in a hands-on, multi-sensory way.

     First you need a “leaf bag.” You could probably do better than our plastic one ;-)

     This activity would work really well with older children, make an “I spy” game out of it when you spot a leaf. For the toddlers, I just narrated a lot:

     “See that tall tree with the thick, white trunk? It has bluish-green leaves. The leaves are special because they’re in the shape of a circle! Look at those neat circle leaves! Let’s pick one and put it in our leaf bag!”

     I picked two leaves and gave one to each boy to feel and look at. Putting them in the bag was fun!

     Don’t forget to look for leaves of different sizes, shapes, textures, and colors. If you find pine needles, basil leaves, or rosemary make sure and smell them! Once you go around the neighborhood and have a good assortment of leaves in your bag, head home.

     When you get the collection home, you can talk about what you found. I made a “Leaf Hunt” book to go along with the walk!

     
     Make crayon-rubbings of the leaves on each of the pages. Really fat crayons work the best for this; we used some giant, homemade crayons. My two-year-old struggled with crayon-rubbing, but it was good fine motor practice anyway! You will end up helping a lot. Make sure and label the leaves. 

     Here I saved the actual leaves we found and made a puzzle for T to match the leaves with the colored rubbings on the page:

He did pretty good!

     Staple the pages together and now you have a cool book that your child made! They can use it to practice reading and learn to identify shapes, colors, textures, and sizes!

Pick Your Own Produce!

     I used to work at an after-school program when I was 18 and 19 years old. One day a little boy was tearing branches off a tree and I told him to stop. He asked “why” and I said he was hurting it. This confused the first grader quite a bit because he didn’t know that trees were alive! He thought they were “decorations.”

     That day I vowed to myself: "When I have kids, they will know better than that!"

      A lot of kids I’ve come into contact with think that food (even produce!) comes from the store… period. Maybe that's because we live in a large city. I want my kids to learn early how our groceries come to be. As always, the Bible is a great place to start…

“Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seeds in it, according to their various kinds.’” 

Genesis 1:11

“Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.’” 

Genesis 1:29

“…The rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater…” 

Isaiah 55:10

     I would actually really love to keep a garden, but funding and talent have prevented that. To those of you who garden with your kids, that’s awesome! You are going to teach them so much about life! I, however, must resort to field trips.

     One day this past Fall while browsing the “for sale” shelf at our library, my inspiration was found: bilingual book all about apples and how they grow. I bought it and decided to show T hands-on what this was all about.

     
      I found a great website where you can search for orchards in your area:

PickYourOwn.Org 

     I found one about an hour and a half from where we live and invited some friends. All the kids and moms had a blast! This was one of the coolest things I have done with my son. The orchard was on a farm so we got to visit lots of animals and have great BBQ for lunch! 

     In addition to the learning experience we got pounds of organic golden delicious apples for a fraction of what they cost in the grocery store! Later that week at home we learned how to make an apple pie!

 

      I will definitely be posting again in the summer after we harvest some peaches and maybe some strawberries too!

     How do you teach your kids where food comes from? Farmers' markets, gardening, book suggestions? Do you have any tips for gardening in AZ on a budget? 


Heather