Away from our daily routine and out into nature

In this blog post – the first in our “health promotion” series – you will learn more about motor development. You will also find out how to provide the best motoric development as parents and how this is put into practice at kids & co daycare centres.   

The objective of Gesundheitsförderung Schweiz (Health Promotion Switzerland) is to boost people’s health resources and potential. This begins with regular exercise during childhood, ideally outdoors.   

At our kids & co daycare centres, we go outside with all of the children every day. We enable the children to make their own journeys of discovery, accompanying them in motor challenges and designing their environment based on their needs and levels of development. Our woodland days are particularly popular: From May to September, each group of children spends one day a week in a nearby woodland. This takes us “away from our daily routine and out into nature”.  

Regularly going out into nature with children is a good idea for the following reasons:

• Sensory perception: Children experience their environment in its various forms via sensory stimulation and develop a curious and questioning attitude.
• Exercise and health: The uneven natural terrain and obstacles to overcome encourage motor development. Fresh air also strengthens the immune system.
• Social skills: Spending time in nature can have a positive effect on social behaviour and the sense of community within the group.
• Imagination: A child’s imagination can unfold freely by playing in nature without any manufactured toys. A toppled tree can be used as a shop counter, while pine cones and leaves symbolically become food. In this day and age, when children are often overstimulated by media, playing and learning out in nature is vital for the body, mind and soul.
• Self-sufficiency and self-awareness: Out in nature, we discover our feelings (fear, disgust, joy, peacefulness, etc.). Nature’s many-sidedness awakens children’s curiosity and much of what they try helps develop self-awareness.
• Holistic and environmental education: Environmental education takes place of its own accord through encounters with nature. Children learn to interact responsibly and respectfully with their environment and natural resources. I can only protect what I know! 

You as parents can also support motor development outside of the daycare centre. Give your child the gift of free space in your flat, house and garden. This gives your child the most scope to flourish at their particular stage of development. Going outside every day is indispensable for this. Experiencing the weather in the different seasons and getting fresh air both contribute to the whole family’s well-being.    

Here’s how to guarantee the best motor development for your child:   

• Go out into nature. Whatever the weather. Ideally for over 60 minutes.  
• Avoid long periods of sedentary activity.   
• Provide your child with a variety of opportunities to exercise to strengthen and improve various aspects – their bones, cardiovascular system, muscles, agility and mobility.   

Ideas for games 

There are exciting discoveries to be made in nature and woodland all year round. This means that it doesn’t have to be summer when the weather’s warm to go into nature or the woods. We have put together some ideas for games that you can play with your child in different seasons. 

Spring 

• Look for signs that spring is on the way. What shows spring has arrived? Look for buds, shoots, young leaves, snowdrops, wild garlic and other flowers together as a group on the way somewhere or as its own activity where each child searches for something and leads the others to it.
• Make Easter nests out of materials found in the woods
• Listen to woodland sounds and guess what they are (in spring, particularly woodpeckers and cuckoos)
• Build bird houses and observe over the next few weeks whether birds nest in them
• Decorate woodland areas with mandalas or mobiles (only use threads made of natural fibres!) and draw on trees with chalk
• Find a pond with tadpoles and watch how they grow 

Summer 

• See what creatures are living underneath large stones and fallen tree trunks/branches
• Take clay from the ground, make sculptures out of it and generally knead it (possible starting from warm spring days and into autumn)
• Imitate the way animals walk (e.g. using an obstacle course or as a race)
• Build insect hotels and watch who moves in
• Inside the lid of an egg carton, stick a picture of one woodland treasure above each section. The children will then search for each object and put them in the sections. 

Autumn 

• Make piles of leaves and jump into them
• Pile leaves up on top of children so that they can jump out of them
• Lay down stone spirals (using small or large stones, potentially paint stones with Neocolor)
• Build a hut with long branches (either like a teepee or like a floor plan with multiple rooms)
• Make brushes out of sticks and paint pictures with them
• Find colourful leaves and press them, then use them to make handicrafts (e.g. tracing, laminating and hanging up the results as “leaf memories”) 

Winter

• Make bird food as a Christmas present for the woodland birds (e.g. take birdseed and coconut oil, heat it in a pan and mix it. Once it has cooled down a bit, mould it onto a string with your hands, let it cool down and then hang it from trees/bushes)
• When it snows, make sculptures out of it and hold an exhibition
• Paint stones using Neocolor and put them in front of the fire to make hand-warming worry stones

Remember that fresh air and exercise are invaluable for your body too.

Have fun out in nature!