You will need: • Walking shoes • A container or bag to put your collected items in • Water to drink if you are going a distance

You can:

• Go on a walk with your child and:

• Look

• Touch

• Smell

• Wonder

• Discover

• Listen

• Enjoy finding interesting things along the way and collect small objects that you can take home with you e.g. pinecones, leaves or sticks

• Play a guessing game e.g. find and leaf and ask, ‘which tree did this leaf come from?’

You can also:

• Make a mobile with your collected treasures

• Take photos along the way

• Draw a picture or write a story about what you did

• Go on a Bear Hunt (see children’s book ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ by Helen Oxenbury).

• Go on a treasure hunt.

• Look at a map and plan the route you will walk.

• Invite your child to draw a map of where you are going.

• Make a list of what you might want to look for (e.g. we might see some animals or we might smell some flowers).

Did you know:

Children learn much through the 5 senses – sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Because the natural world is filled with beautiful sights, sounds and textures it is the perfect resource to develop their senses.

What your child is learning:

• An awareness and understanding of our natural environment

• To develop working theories about the living world

• To respect and care for the natural world

• To develop responsibility for maintaining the well-being of the living environment