Facilitating Nature Connections in Children - Nature's Classroom (January - March 2025)

Nature's Classroom activities with Children of St. Anne's Pre-school Jan - March 2024

What comes to mind when you hear the term "nature connection"? At the Alderney Wildlife Trust, we see it as the bond people form with nature - how they understand, appreciate, and interact with the natural world. This connection grows through simple activities: a walk outdoors, birdwatching in the garden, or the sensory experiences of touching, smelling, tasting, hearing, and seeing the natural world.

For young children, these nature connections are vital in developing environmental awareness. That's why our Trust team strives to bring nature closer to children whenever possible. During weekly visits to St. Anne's Pre-school, I create seasonal opportunities for hands-on nature experiences. Here are some highlighted activities from the first few months of the year.

Playing with mud

For Lunar New Year, the children played with mud, three-cornered leek, mint, rosemary, ivy, and silverberry leaves, pretending to make mud noodles and dumplings while practicing using tongs. Young children love moving mud mixtures from one bowl to another. This is transporting schema, a repeated pattern of behaviour in children.

Love potion from white vinegar and baking powder / Thanh Doan

‘Love Potions’ with White Vinegar and Baking Soda

Children adore mixing colours and observing fascinating reactions. They were thrilled to see white foam rising from their ‘love potions’ as the baking soda dissolved in vinegar. The free choice of choosing colours, adding flower petals, and sprinkling seasoning powders enriched their sensory experience.

Sink or Float

There’s something magical about water that captivates children. This sink-or-float activity was a hit! All the children loved scooping items out of the water with nets. By adding natural elements like ray egg cases, common whelk egg masses, cuttlefish bones, and marine shells, we introduced them to different marine creatures through play. The children discovered how some objects sank to the bottom while others floated on the water's surface.

Hello tadpoles

Thanks to our volunteer, Lou Collings, we obtained some tadpoles in late March—a great opportunity for the kids to observe them up close. Using frog models and soft toys from St. Anne’s Pre-school’s learning materials, children also arranged the different stages of a frog’s life cycle.

Make bird feeders from milk carton boxes

Making Feeders from Milk Carton Boxes

While the weather was still cold, our feathered friends enjoyed the bird feeders the kids made. Using carton boxes, they crafted their own feeders—practicing scissor skills with help from adults. Through this simple activity, the children not only improved their fine motor skills but also started acting for wildlife!

Nursery Rhymes: 'Five Little Speckled Frogs' and 'Incy Wincy Spider'

During Nursery Rhyme Week, we introduced the children to Five Little Speckled Frogs and Incy Wincy Spider. As they listened to the rhymes, they also made a fun spider craft that could crawl in and out of a tube! The little ones then enjoyed searching for toy spiders hidden in a maze.

These playful activities—singing spider-themed songs and handling toy spiders—helped desensitize the children to spiders. One girl, who was initially too afraid to join in, eventually gained confidence and played alongside her friends!