Encorporating nature into a 2 year old classroom during the winter?

Question

I teach 2 year olds at a day care center. I need some ideas of how to encorporate more nature and science into my room during the winter. It doesn't snow here, and it's not icy outside, but it's too cold to go for long nature walks. I need something that can actually be IN OUR ROOM that the kids can participate in. I really want nature things.

Answer 1

Here are some nature and science activities for two year olds:

1. When doing water play add ice to the containers...great way to incorporate the cold. Also you can add plastic winter animals (like penguins, polar bears, whales) of the appropriate size to the ice and water buckets. Great discussions come from that!

2. Make peanut butter pinecones with seeds for a "treat for the birds"

3. Winter Snow Recipe

Materials: Soap flakes, water, liquid starch, and white powdered tempra.

Description: Mix soap flakes with water into a thick paste. Let children mix with a hand beater. Add a small amount of liquid starch and tempra. Let children create designs by painting with this mixture.

4. " Ice Block Designs"

Children observe how salt melts ice and create colorful designs in large blocks of ice.

Materials: Large ice blocks (We made them by freezing water in empty one gallon milk containers).  When the water is completely frozen, tear off the cardboard  

container.  

Coarse salt

Food coloring  

Eye droppers

Description:

1.  Place ice blocks on trays covered with several layers of  newspaper.

2.  Children sprinkle coarse salt on top of the ice blocks.

3.  Children drip various colors of food coloring on top of the ice block.

4.  Tunnels of color are created as the salt melts through the ice block.

5.  Put the colorful ice blocks outside.  If it's cold enough, they should stay frozen for several days. Children can continue to examine the melting process during outdoor play.

Answer 2

I did this with a class of kindergarten children some years ago and it was a great success.  Have a beach party.  Heat the room up to a decent temperature so the kids don't become chilled.  Send out invitations so the children will be able to wear bathing suits under their clothing.  Have them bring a beach towel, and ask if any parent can donate the following:  portable plastic pool(s), sand, sea shells, beach balls, anything relating to the beach.  I played Hawaiian music, served punch and chips, and the kids had a ball!  It takes a little clean up afterward, and you may want to ask parents to help out with that as well.  The object is to have fun, explore the sea with all that it has to offer, and learn about various sea creatures whether they are plastic or real.

Answer 3

How about creating a terrarium.  Talk about the various plants you use and maybe tell about some of the insects that may be present.

Answer 4

I worked at a day care for many years with the three-year-olds, in the science center.  Our favorite activitiy was bringing in nature items like leaves, bark, pinecones, twigs, etc. (whether as part of a "homework" assignment or a nature walk or something I picked up and brought in).  We then did things like make crayon rubbings of the items, glue the items to paper to make scenes, and make up stories about the items.  You'd be surprised to see what a three-year-old thinks a pine cone's life was like, and I'm sure two-year-olds would have a similar imagination.

We also used the items to work on vocabulary.  I'd introduce words like "rough," "smooth," "cold," etc., and we'd work on catergorizing the items into groups.  We'd use it to practice the alphabet ("What do you think pine cone starts with?"), counting ("How many leaves on this branch?"), and colors ("What colors do you see in this rock?").  

We also did things like cut out snowflakes (or rip paper to make snowflakes for the kids not quite that good with scissors), or have everyone rip up pieces of paper and throw them in the air to make snow.  That's a messy one, but very popular!  

We had very basic discussions about what different animals do in the winter ("When it gets cold, I like to drink hot chocolate and wear a sweater.  What do you like to do?  What do you think a bear does?  What do you think a bird does?").  The kids would practice "hibernating" under blankets, and draw pictures of what they thought the bears were doing in their caves.  

If you have a window, leaving birdseed on the window sill is a great watching activity for children, even that young.  They can practice their colors ("See the red bird?  See the brown bird?") and learn to identify them ("That one is a Robin!").

We also did a big section on weather, and had the kids guess the temperature outside (a lot of cute guesses) and made charts documenting the cold and warm spells.  We had a spinner chart that we would point to how it felt outside ("Brr!" "Not too Bad!" "Warm" "Too hot!" etc) and would decide as a class which one was appropriate for today.

There's obviously a big developmental difference between 2 and 3-year-olds, but many of these activities could be modified to work.

Answer 5

I live in one of the coldest places in North America. I am from Churchill, Manitoba and you can definately pick a theme and talk about animals that live in the Arctic. I think that Polar Bears would be a great topic as they are very popular around the world and they are cute and fuzzy (which doe NOT make them any less dangerous!) as well as other animals such as the Arctic Fox, Beluga Whales and many others!

Have them draw pictures, read stories from the library about these animals or make crafts like puppets of Polar Bears and such.

Ask the children's parents to bring in stuffed animals of bears and put on a play for them. 2 year olds are a great group I suppose but it would be great for them to learn what they can about other far off places and the great animals that live in different parts of the world! Let me know how that goes or if you would like to try this and need to know more about Churchill and the animals that are from here, you can email me at [e-mail]

I really do appreciate people out there that go into the profession of child care. I have two children and they loved their daycare center and the enthusiastic workers that cared for them. Keep up the good work!