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Teaching Your Toddler Through Fun Activities
Yesterday, we had a lot of fun with the National Wildlife Federation and Kolcraft fans at our Twitter Party for Hike & Seek. We learned all sorts of information about outdoor play and great activities to get us outside as families. We love NWF’s website because they have so many great activities. We wanted to share one of them with you that we have tried out and have had fun doing it! We love this activity because not only does it get your outside with your toddler to explore nature, but it’s educational too!
Sort, Stack, and Shape
Ages: Up to 3 years
What You Need:
- a backyard, park, or any safe outdoor place to explore
- twigs, grass, flowers, nuts, and other natural objects
What You Do:
Put aside the plastic toys aimed at teaching toddlers shapes and sorting skills. It’s a lot more exciting—and every bit as educational—to use items found outside. Nature offers all sorts of free teaching materials: sticks, stones, blades of grass, fallen leaves, and more.
Use natural objects to introduce textures (bumpy, smooth, prickly, soft, etc).
- Sort a handful of stones by size.
- Break twigs into different lengths and help your child sort them – shortest to longest.
- See how high you can stack a pile of small rocks.
- Find a comfy spot to sit down and make shapes on the ground: twig triangles, rock rectangles, seed squares, and so on.
This activity and other great activities for your whole family can be found at the National Wildlife Federation’s website.
These are all such wonderful ideas – thank you!
I like the idea of using natural things for your child to play with. It’s not always about store bought toys. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing! I love the idea of using the items found outside to make shapes. Sounds like so much fun for toddlers.
Thank you Cari! We love having you as a Kolcraft fan!
You are right Tiffany! It’s amazing all that Mother Nature provides for us to learn & have fun!
Thanks Kendra! And thanks for being a Kolcraft fan.
I love this. There’s enough in simply nature itself to stimulate our kids’ minds and connect with them. great ideas here.
Thanks Niecey! We appreciate your comments!
sounds like a great idea to take shape finding outdoors..my son is really into his learning of shapes now…so this seems like a good mix for us!
I will ask my daughter to play “Natural art” I will ask her to collect leaves, grass, twigs, pebbles and feathers. Its also nice idea to take her photo as a reminder of their hard work. I guess These natural art will help her to get fresh and natural air. these game will help her to understand the nature and how to take care….
This is a good variation and expansion of the traditional leaf hunting expedition. Toddlers are so much fun to work with and they always expand my viewpoint through watching them learn.