Free printable: Summer activity worksheet

11th June 2018| Blogs

How many colours can you find outside?

As the weather gets a little warmer, take to your local playground, park, woods or garden with our brand new summer activity: the Thrive nature colour hunt.

Click here to print your free summer activity worksheet. Identify as many of the Thrive colours as you can and stick down the items that you find using double-sided tape in the spaces provided. You can also draw or write down what you can see if you would prefer.

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Outdoor adventures

 

Spending time outside, surrounded by nature, gives children the opportunity to immerse themselves in a dynamic environment which appeals to their senses. These sensory experiences can foster children's intellectual, emotional, social and physical wellbeing.

The Child Mind Institute have recorded the following recognised benefits of time outdoors:

  • It builds confidence. The way that kids play in nature has a lot less structure than most types of indoor play. There are infinite ways to interact with outdoor environments, from the backyard to the park to the local hiking trail or lake, and letting your child choose how he treats nature means he has the power to control his own actions.
  • It promotes creativity and imagination. This unstructured style of play also allows kids to interact meaningfully with their surroundings. They can think more freely, design their own activities, and approach the world in inventive ways.
  • It teaches responsibility. Living things die if mistreated or not taken care of properly, and entrusting a child to take care of the living parts of their environment means they'll learn what happens when they forget to water a plant, or pull a flower out by its roots.
  • It provides different stimulation. Nature may seem less stimulating than your son's violent video game, but in reality, it activates more senses-you can see, hear, smell, and touch outdoor environments. "As the young spend less and less of their lives in natural surroundings, their senses narrow," Louv warns, "and this reduces the richness of human experience."
  • It gets kids moving. Most ways of interacting with nature involve more exercise than sitting on the couch. Your kid doesn't have to be joining the local soccer team or riding a bike through the park-even a walk will get her blood pumping. Not only is exercise good for kids' bodies, but it seems to make them more focused, which is especially beneficial for kids with ADHD.
  • It makes them think. Louv says that nature creates a unique sense of wonder for kids that no other environment can provide. The phenomena that occur naturally in backyards and parks everyday make kids ask questions about the earth and the life that it supports.
  • It reduces stress and fatigue. According to the Attention Restoration Theory, urban environments require what's called directed attention, which forces us to ignore distractions and exhausts our brains. In natural environments, we practice an effortless type of attention known as soft fascination that creates feelings of pleasure, not fatigue.

To read more from the Child Mind Institute, click here.

Over to you

Reduced anxiety and behavioural incidents. Calmer classrooms filled with engaged leaners. Improved relationships with parents and carers. These are just some of the outcomes reported by settings embedding Thrive’s whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing. Are you ready to join them? Click here to get started.

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