You are here - Home > Environmental Activities > Use Your Senses
1. Use Your Senses and Enjoy the Outdoors Course
There are many environmental activities that you could carry out with your group to help them to understand and appreciate the natural environment. Sources of ideas include Joseph Cornell and Steve Van Matre. Here are just a few suggestions.
Choose from the following 3 activities or do all 3!:
Before leaving on your trip, discuss with the children any hazards they might come across and the ways they will minimise these.
Suggested Method:
Ask the children to find a place (within a boundary set by you) to sit quietly by themselves and enjoy being outdoors.
Listen
Encourage the children to settle down, close their eyes if they wish
and to concentrate on the sounds of the outdoors. You could ask
them to raise their hands in a fist and then open up one finger each
time they hear a different natural noise. Do this until all children
have heard 5 different natural noises (if appropriate).
Look
Ask the children to move slowly and quietly within your pre-set area,
looking for a natural object that they find beautiful or interesting.
Depending on the time of year, this might be an autumn leaf, a twig,
a bud, some lichen or moss, a stone or a flower. It should be
emphasised that the children should only collect things that are not
alive. You could ask them to describe their object to the rest of the
group and tell them what they like about it.
Smell
Ask the children to move slowly and quietly within your pre-set area,
looking for a natural smell. Can they describe it to others? Does it
remind them of anything? How does it make them feel?
Touch
In pairs, ask one child to lead another (blindfolded if you wish) to
natural items that they think will have an interesting texture. Can
they describe the texture to others? Is it a nice feeling?