Join us as we explore how forest school activities for babies can ignite their natural curiosity and foster essential early development…
Babies are sensory-motor learners. When newly born, they have a well-developed sense of touch overall, but limited finger pad sensitivity.
Due to nature’s programmed survival instinct the majority of their senses are concentrated around certain areas on their bodies, for example, their lips.
To aid babies’ development, we need to provide a sensory-rich environment with many textures, temperatures, colours, smells and sounds. Consequently, the great outdoors is an ideal learning environment for even tiny infants because it engages all of their senses.
They advance their physical development to new levels in response to the many different sources of stimuli. For example. varied environmental effects motivate them to move their bodies in many different ways, encouraging them to:
Being outside and taking part in forest school activities also supports babies to begin to use their hands. Natural physical support (e.g. sitting between logs) helps them to concentrate on other activities, rather than the sitting itself.
The outdoor environment has a great impact on the development of vision, hearing and touch of babies, too.
In the open air, their brains, motivated by the abundance of stimuli, build new neural pathways – the ‘wiring’ of the brain – in order to cope with the vast amount of new information they are processing.
This increased brain activity supports all areas of development. While receiving and learning to decode the new information, the developing brain also has to store, use and link it. It concentrates its activity not only on survival, but learning.
In order to take advantage of the body’s ability to improve through sensory-motor learning, we need to give the brain ample opportunity to recognise and understand productive and counterproductive information, based on basic movements.
Neurophysiologists have observed that conventional exercises, with their focus on muscular effort, force and speed, inhibit the brain’s ability to function properly on the body’s behalf. It becomes impossible for the brain to make the clear sensory distinctions needed to improve the body’s organisation.
However, when movements are slow and easy, they activate the brain’s movement centres and generate a flow of valuable information between the brain cells.
During forest school activities we can give time and space to allow babies to make slow and concentrated movements. This leaves the brain free to make important sensory distinctions.
Unlike all the activities you usually need to carefully plan and organise indoors in order to offer a rich, nurturing and appropriately challenging environment for very young children, the magic of forest school activities for babies is that they occur mostly naturally.
Here are some of the ways in which the natural environment can engage infants’ senses:
Sound moves in a different way outside due to the lack of physical limits and the effects of natural forces. For example, it may change naturally with the wind or variations in air pressure.
In the very early stages of their development, up until the age of six months, babies are able to differentiate sounds much more effectively than adults.
Therefore, they’re significantly more receptive to air movement and animal sounds. Young babies are also naturally programmed to be curious and alert, and as a result they love being outdoors.
Forest school environments, as opposed to conventional early years outdoor settings, offer a large variety of unusual sounds.
Light is more varied in natural environments. It sometimes changes very rapidly with the weather – even over the course of 15 minutes.
It is filtered by trees and bushes and appears differently in different parts of a site. Natural puddles of light act as a great source of fascination for young babies.
The changes in illumination stimulate their eyes to adapt, which in turn stimulates their brains.
Young children’s sense of smell is greatly stimulated outdoors, particularly in the diverse surroundings common to forest school.
Scents (like grass, earth, flowers, rain, mud, tree bark, etc.) that babies are unlikely to encounter in a conventional outdoor setting encourage them to pull themselves up to standing and investigate the source of the smell.
These sources occur naturally at different levels, so babies need to work out how to access them, for example, how to smell the grass without falling forwards.
At birth, babies move rapidly from the warm, soft, protective environment of the womb to a different world with many different sensations.
All of a sudden they are able to feel the air, surfaces and clothes on their skin. These feelings take time to get used to and babies are learning about life with each touch. Touch is the key sense when it comes to them exploring the world.
Outdoors, they can lie on or sit in the grass; they can feel textural differences tickling their skin.
Babies’ mouths and tongues are their most touch-sensitive areas, and once they are able to intentionally grasp objects – usually by three months of age – they will begin to mouth them.
Whilst mouthing objects can cause particular health and safety issues during forest school activities, careful supervision of babies can open up an environment that offers a sensory wonderland like no other.
Children appreciate liveliness and colours but not necessarily the stereotypical choices. Warmer, natural tones are more nurturing in general, whereas harsher colours can be emotionally frigid for a growing infant.
Softer tones, rather than brash, bold colours, can help babies develop a sense of refined appreciation, and they may be able to spot splashes of brighter tones in nature.
Children are very sensitive to energy flow and the communication of external objects, which helps the growing brain to understand placement and integration in a larger sense. This is something forest school activities for babies can naturally provide.
Children like natural places as they are creative, active, reflective, emotional and social.
The main principle of the forest school ethos does not change for babies. The learning that takes place should be based on play and exploration, and built upon week-on-week.
However, as babies perceive the world around them differently we need to adapt forest school activities to suit their needs.
While a typical forest school session will run for one-and-a-half hours, for babies a mere 20 minutes can be very valuable, although you can extend this.
Start your sessions with the same routine: getting ready to go outside – dressing in appropriate clothing, wellies (or shoe covers) and waterproofs.
Next, gather at a seating circle of logs to catch up with what happened at the last session. Show babies objects and draw their attention by pointing and talking to them. You can also discuss the weather.
You can offer a wide range of forest school activities for babies, including bug hunting, mud painting, collecting and touching.
Make sure to follow any child-initiated activities. Introduce the basics of building and tool use via the use of natural objects as building blocks and handling sticks. At the end of the session, repeat the gathering.
One of the main worries that comes when planning forest school activities for babies is the issue of mouthing small objects.
However, with appropriate ratios and adult attention you can minimise this risk. You will of course need to do a risk assessment and carefully assess the weather (especially sun, wind and frost) prior to and during sessions. Don’t forget to offer drinks regularly too.
Judit Horvath managed an ‘outstanding’ nursery in Essex. Now based in Hungary, she is an author and nursery management consultant.
