Bird Feeding for Under-Fives
As autumn fades and winter begins in late December, wild birds struggle more to find food. Natural foods like insects, fruit, nectar, caterpillars and grubs are nowhere to be found. Even recently-abundant seeds have now dropped to the ground and are either buried or already eaten. With the colder temperatures, birds also need more food because they burn calories trying to stay warm. With all that in mind, we’ve been feeding our wild birds each day to keep them from going hungry. Today’s post explains how children and under-fives can also get involved in the rewarding activity of feeding wild birds.
Children Love Feeding Birds!
Feeding wild birds is something that children can definitely get involved in. It’s not only great for the birds, assuming it’s done properly of course, but it’s also a wonderful thing for children. If they keep it up, they’ll soon get to recognise the ‘regulars’ who will turn up each day. If they get used to a particular feeding time and place, some birds may even start to wait nearby once they begin to trust you and your child. That can take significant time, though, so children must learn to be patient (a great skill to have) and remain calm and quiet when wild animals and birds are nearby.
Good for Birds & Great for Children
Providing food for birds is a win-win for everyone — humans and birds alike. Birds obviously get to eat much needed food without huge effort and children get to learn more about nature and perhaps individual bird visitors. (We even name our regulars! “Vern” is a tame blackbird, for example, having been named after a character in the famous movie Rain Man). By encouraging birds to visit, children will soon be able to recognise and name the different species of bird too, particularly if given some help from a parent or bird book. Visitors might include robins, blackbirds, blue tits, great tits, long-tailed tits (our favourite), thrushes, starlings and, if they’re lucky, more unusual, colourful birds like nuthatches, woodpeckers, bull finches and gold finches. As it gets colder, some species will travel to warmer countries to overwinter. For those that stay in the UK, however, food from a friendly young nature-lover will be a real lifeline.
Learning to Appreciate Nature & Other Creatures
If children do get involved in feeding wild birds, they’ll soon begin to realise how delightful the little beings are. They each have their own character, likes and dislikes. Children will get to appreciate this if they keep up the feeding and the birds will soon realise where to find the food each day. Children will get to understand the importance of nature and learn skills like empathy, understanding and responsibility as they nurture the wellbeing of these beautiful wild visitors. Animals, birds and insects are all individuals and it’s good for children to recognise this. By feeding birds and other animals, they will also be able to continue to appreciate nature and the natural world, just like they do in our Forest School at Little Acorns Nursery School. Nature teaches children so much about the natural world as well as about themselves. It also makes them more aware of ecological issues and, as such, can make them more inclined to …
Today we’ll look at the immense benefits of nature to children. While the long-term benefits of nature are reasonably well-known, it turns out short-term exposure to the natural environment also has1 clear benefits for people of any age. The benefits are even more beneficial, though, for young people during their early years, at school and in higher education.
One of the wonderful things about nature is that immersing oneself in it need not cost a penny. With so many proven benefits, it just goes to show that the old adage that ‘the best things in life are free’ really is true when it comes to nature. Exposure to the natural environment and green surroundings has been shown to have clear benefits …
Children living in England are very fortunate to have their early years childcare supported financially by a variety of Government funding schemes. The 3 most important, popular and widely-available schemes are:
Let’s look at each of the schemes …
Generally speaking, under-fives should be encouraged to be active. There are many benefits of this including remaining physically fit, getting to know and enhancing physical abilities, honing motor skills (fine and gross) and improving coordination and balance. In addition, it helps the very young to develop visual and sensory skills. Physical activity is also part and parcel of the development of new neurological pathways in the brain. All these skills and benefits will become increasingly important as children grow, develop and become ever-more active and independent.
Eating a healthy, balanced diet is important at any age. However, during their formative years when they’re still growing, it’s even more important for under-fives. Their young bodies and brains are still developing, so getting the right balance of food types, vitamins and nutrients is essential in order to maintain optimum health, cognitive function and even sufficient energy levels. (Regular exercise is also essential, of course – however, we’ll cover that separately in a future post).
Communication & Language is the first of the three prime areas of our EYFS-based curriculum. Without good communication and language skills, all other areas of learning could suffer, so these are critically important skills for children to master in their early years. Staff at the nursery therefore encourage rich communications between staff and children — and from peer to peer — from the very first day they join the nursery. Language and communication skills grow naturally to children through engaging, fun activities like role-play, story-telling and question-and-answer games. High quality books and other rich reading materials are also employed by staff to read with children in an interactive way. Using these kind of approaches helps children to learn new vocabulary and grammar, to improve reading and comprehension and to almost effortlessly broaden their language and communication skills as they grow.
Indeed, parents can be thought of as key to their children’s success, if they support children’s education in the right ways. We’ll go through exactly what that means, along with some of the many benefits, in this article.
Little Acorns Nursery offers Forest School sessions and, indeed, was the first childcare setting in the Chorley area to offer them. Many parents understand that ‘Forest School’ offers children outdoor discovery sessions where they can explore nature and all that the Great Outdoors has to offer. However, what’s it really about? What is the ethos behind it? How did it come about and what is its history? Perhaps most importantly, what are its benefits to children? Here we’ll answer all those questions and more, in our Ultimate Guide to Forest School.
