With winter weather kicking in outside today and a fever that is still lingering, it was time to get a little creative with the Nature Basket. For those of us that are privileged enough to live in a place where it gets cold and snowy for a few months of the year, I realized it might be a valuable exercise to see how our little basket activity could be brought indoors. I fully support traipsing around in the cold, nature truly takes on a whole new beauty in the wintertime. However, winter is also a great time to hunker down indoors and spend some cozy quality time together (though I know that on some of those long, dark, and cold winter days "cozy" and "quality" can be relative terms).
Think about it this way, the time stuck inside together can provide opportunities for really high-quality interactions with our children. The summer makes it so easy to go in and out, to be busy sun up to sun down. Sometimes amidst all this hustle and bustle I forget to take the time to really be with my daughter. Yes, often she is there, and there is much to be said about all the things she learns in the big wide world. But there is a different kind of learning that can occur when we sit down together and I just focus on her.
Determined to make the Nature Basket work today, we set out around the house to find what kinds of things we have inside that qualifies as "nature". I've never had much luck with indoor plants, so our search leads us straight to the kitchen- and voila!- we have more than enough material to work with. Opening the produce drawer in the fridge feels like a treasure hunt, as we pull out lemons, brussels sprouts, and a sweet potato. As my daughter takes out an item, I name it. Such a simple thing really, almost unconscious, but as children learn that words have meaning, and that each object has a name, their vocabulary grows and grows acquiring all the wonderful, and often strange, new words.
Apparently, the word potato has just the right ring to it. The sweet potato is chosen for the basket. "Poe-tay-toe!", I announce. "Day-doe!", she joyously repeats. "Yeah! Poe-tay-toe!", I say again. "Doe-doe! Doe-day!" She exclaims. Then, because our days together often resemble a 1940's musical, I break into song:
"You say poe-tay-toe and I say poe-taa-toe..." My daughter humors me and giggles. I sing the song a few times, until the charm wears off and she stops laughing. She takes the potato out of the basket and begins to examine it's properties. She drops it on the floor. "Thump! That's heavy!" I say. She pushes it with her hand. "Look! It rolls!" I say.
Often without even realizing it, we are helping our children build concepts and vocabulary. Whether it's breaking out into a song, pointing a familiar object out in a story, or simply narrating what a child is doing, we are filling the air with words for them to take in, fostering the formation of new neuronal connections in their brains.
After the potato physics experiments have ended, I notice that it is about time for lunch... and guess what is on the menu? "Doe-day-doe!" my daughter declares, as I set the mushy chunks in front of her. "Yes! Potato!" I smile. "Yum yum!"