Environmental Activities

The "Bright Ideas for Early Years" series offers a wealth of activities designed to use young children's inherent curiosity in their natural surroundings to increase their awareness of the environment. Environmental education has a high profile in the National Curriculum and many elements of it can, and should, be tackled as early as possible to develop caring attitudes based on knowledge. The book is intended for use by those teaching the 3-6 year age range and it begins with activities that develop the child's own self-awareness and then moves outward to look at different environments - home, classroom, street, insect world, plant world - to investigate how they work and the child's relationship to them. A section on "expeditions" suggests opportunities to introduce children to new environments through visits.