Top picked Eco-activities for Younger Kids

Tribe, how do you think babies should play and how should we keep them active? Should we always play with them or let them explore and just be there for them? But sadly, I have observed many parents these days hardly give a thought to this, instead, very quickly they give a mobile device to their kids without knowing that this habit can lead to issues like ADHD in the future.

I kept my son away from the screen for the entire year, the first year of his life. The results were great not just for him, but even for us as we used to spend time on devices, social media, and watching TV only when he was sleeping. I think it helped a lot to develop family bonding. Babies need our face-time for their overall growth, so it’s advisable to delay introducing them to devices. Obviously, we found creative ways to keep him busy and of course, this was a great chance to introduce him to surrounding Nature.

In the attempt of introducing my son to Green Living, we engaged ourselves with lots of green activities and play at home and outdoors. Here, I would like to share some of our favorite Eco-activities with you!

Want to play Nature I-spy with kids?

Before we talk more about kids’ eco-activities here is a sure-shot successful fun learning game for UAE kids. Get a copy of our UAE Outdoors Scavenger Hunt E-book when you are going outside anywhere in the UAE. Play a nature I spy game with your kids and learn about UAE’s nature and biodiversity with your kids.

1. Finding Natural Materials For Play

When Ruhaan was a young baby we played with natural materials like rocks, fresh and dried leaves, bird feathers, twigs, seedpods, etc., to explore different textures. Take kids outdoors, even the landscape area in communities or manicured parks are fine, those are sanctuaries for native species and create habitat for birds, bugs, etc. When outside look carefully at paths, trees, flowers and draw your kid’s attention to what you observe. Let your kids explore and collect natural materials in their treasure basket, just make sure, there are no sharp edges and corners. Let them learn to play a natural way instead of guided and planned play all the time. 

When kids reach the age when they take an interest in art and craft you can use these natural collectibles for kids’ art and craft. Here is some inspiration for kids’ art and craft out of natural materials.

2. Nature Sensory Activities

I love those cute hands and footprints of infant babies. But we were a little worried to use those store-bought hand footprint kits as the paints are generally toxic. So I used the natural color of turmeric to take his first hand and footprint! Read more about natural baby-safe paints here. It is very important to keep our babies away from chemicals, toxins, and artificial products. They can harm babies in a permanent way. At the same time, we need to take them close to Nature without unnecessarily worrying much. Our kids are designed to cope with natural elements. I exposed Ruhaan to all sorts of natural elements early on, grass in the park, sand on the beach, seawater on the beach and rainwater, the smell of flowers and leaves. Don’t worry about young children getting dirty in soil or sand, let them crawl on the grass in the parks or sand on the beach. They say if you allow the touch of different textures on your baby’s feet, they develop their balance better.

We all know that Babies and kids explore things through their senses and there are so many beautiful things on our planet to stimulate them. We don’t need artificially created plastic toys or screens of i-pads and TVs to stimulate them all the time. They smell, taste, touch, observe things and learn through it; we just need to keep guiding them to taste, touch and smell the right things.

Let your kids smell different things like veggies, fruits, plants, trees everything it helps them to learn new odors. Ruhaan used to recognize good smells if he smelled flowers (kept in flower shops in a mall), he used to smile. He liked the smell of carrot/celery/apple/mint too. But always keep a watchful eye on kids that things are not entering their nose like insects or bugs from flowers etc.

3. Explore Food

Now during his toddler-age, we play with homemade playdough, rice, real vegetables, and fruits. I always let him taste all sorts of fruits and even vegetables after washing them clean. Now he loves to squeeze oranges, make juice and drink it. 

I even let my son explore our edible plants, he plucks leaves of mint, smells them, or even tastes them. Once they are a bit older, you can involve them in gardening and planting activities. Here you might like to read and get inspired by Ruhaan’s first planting experience.

4. Animal Love

Kids love animals naturally, so make sure you introduce your kids to real animals early on. It’s fun to see how they relate quickly to real animals using sounds from ”Old Mcdonald’s farm’. Cuddling and petting animals have been always my favorite activities for Ruhaan let it be the Souq Waqif pet market in Doha or Posh Paws and Al Dhabi stable in Dubai or watching animals on the street in India. Running behind ducks in Safa Park is another favorite of a game his play 🙂

Things to watch around animals

Of course, accidents might happen and they do teach lessons to us as parents. I would like to share one such incidence, which taught us a big lesson and created a stressful situation on our son’s second birthday!

On Ruhaan’s first birthday, we had an eco-friendly farm-themed birthday party where we kept a petting zoo and ponies. Along with Ruhaan all our guests and children touched and cuddled many animals like rabbits, dogs, turtles, snakes, iguanas, horses, ducks. So on his second birthday, now after he developed more sense of understanding and can create memory now; we wanted to give him a day to remember.

We took him to Posh Paws in Dubai where there are many animals from around the world, rescued and looked after. We cuddled lots of animals and fed them. Ruhaan was overjoyed with the up-close experience with goats and kids, ducks, goose, cow, etc. He watched tortoises eating carrots, emus taking baths, ostrich having lunch, monkeys swinging, deers lazing around, etc. He took a pony ride and loved the ‘bumpy ride’. In the end, when we were about to leave, he accidentally touched the cage of a blue macaw, who particularly was known to bite people and we were warned about it! As soon as Ruhaan touched the cage, I immediately tried to take his hand away, but Macaw was quicker than me and already got hold of his tiny finger. I could feel the pull and instinctively I gave a light jerk and thankfully Macaw loosened his hold. There were definitely few guardian angels protecting my baby as his finger got just a shallow bruise on the skin. Of course, Ruhaan cried in shock but thanks to the manager of the facility, he provided us with immediate first aid.

My husband didn’t want to leave the place with crying Ruhaan that was quite thoughtful in the given situation. He wanted to make sure that Ruhaan is saying bye to animals with good memories. So after Ruhaan calmed down, we went around and showed him all the other animals again. Of course, I couldn’t stay calm before consulting a physician, just because I am not well aware of these kinds of injuries. Thankfully all things went well, only antibiotic cream was prescribed and our pediatrician told us there is no need to worry. We learned our lesson (in a bad way), however, a memorable way for my son to enter his troublesome two! He is a lot more active than before and we have to be even more careful about his safety now than before. He climbs, jumps, runs, and is getting naughtier. Anything can happen in split second and we should consider all sorts of possibilities before exposing him to these kinds of risks. However, we don’t have any plans to reduce such exposures, we just need to be more prepared.

I thought this story should be shared with my Tribe to let you know the risks involved. Not just we, even you can learn from our mistake of not calculating this before happening it. Luckily our son didn’t develop any kind of fear or such, his bruise healed quickly. He explained to our friends he met the next day at his second birthday party about the incident by saying ‘birdie, got hurt’. We’ll laugh about the incident rest of our life and, if he remembers, he may brag about this experience with his teen friends in the future :).

All I could say is, have fun eco-activities with your kids and stay safe!