Children love the outdoors, love to collect things, and love arts. We can  nurture all three of these passions by helping children create a collage of natural element.

  • Take your child on a walk in your backyard, a park, or the woods and collect small leaves, flowers, grass, sticks, feathers, and whatever else she can finds and appeals to her.
  •  While taking a relaxed walk you can talk to your child about changes that happen every day. Share observations about the weather, blossoming flowers, falling leaves, as well as children’s own growing bodies.
  • Use the outing as a time to expose your child to some new words and concepts by talking about what you find. ” See this leaf? It’s from a maple tree.” How many different coloured leaves did you find?”
  • Once you are home, place a piece of clear contact paper, sticky side up, on top of a tray or on your window. Tape each corner of the contact paper to the tray or window to keep the paper from sticking to your hands.
  • Help your child to arrange her outdoors treasure on the contact paper.
  • Place another piece of transparent contact paper, sticky side down, over the first one to help preserve your child’s work of art.
  • Hang the collage in a window, or your child’s room… anywhere she can proudly showcase her creation.

Letting your child choose her nature elements , and arrange them herself helps her identify and express her personal preferences. Talking to her about nature as you explore the outdoors encourages her to notice and describe the world. And the task of applying objects to sticky contact paper helps enhance her fine motor skills.