Playing is a learning experience for children, and nature play is a great resource. Nature play includes the concept of includes the incorporation of the surrounding scenery into an outdoor playground which children love and enjoy.

Nature offers plenty of learning opportunities for kids. They get great benefits innately as they connect and learn to appreciate their natural surroundings. Today, we live in a technology-driven world where outdoor play and nature play we've experienced before is forgotten.

Nature play involves activities that get kids to be active physically and mentally. Its purpose at the end of the day is to build your children's abilities and skills to play without the supervision of their parents. Thus, it plays a vital role in improving all aspects of a child's development including social, cognitive, physical, and emotional.

Developmental Benefits Of Nature Play

• Helps boost your child's self-confidence, resilience, and initiative.
• It nurtures the wild imagination and experimentation of children.
• It keeps kids active and promotes overall health and fitness through physical activities.
• When kids spend time with nature, their cognitive development improves such as observational skills, reasoning, and awareness.
• Nature play increases their focus and attention span, as well as reduce the possibility of ADHD in kids.
• It encourages them to use their imagination and creativity.
• Nature is an essential element for the development of a child's problem solving and thinking skills.
• It stimulates social interaction as kids tend to be more engage and interact when doing nature play.
• Kids also get stressed from pressure in school and more. Playing with nature helps reduce their stress levels.

Academic Benefits Of Nature Play

• Improves a kid's behavior in the classroom.
• Increased his enthusiasm and motivation to learn.
• Reduce chances of ADHD.
• Kids who engage with nature play perform better in social reading, science, and math.
• Children perform better in school compared to children who are always indoors.
• Higher scores on tests that are standardized.

Best Educational Toys That Encourage Nature Exploration

Kids are naturally curious about the world surrounding them. They have a lot of interest on trees, the weather, plants, and most especially bugs! Educational nature-inspired toys can help inspire them to love nature. It's also a great way to teach kids about how the world and nature works and grows.

From growing vegetables and collecting insects to observing animals and trees, a kid who shows appreciation and interest in nature can help keep them away from the computer and tablets, and instead go outside and enjoy the outdoors.

The educational toys we have listed here are hands-on and will provide your child with hours of endless fun. Encouraging a child to appreciate nature can potentially lead for him to take an interest in the environment and become environmentally conscious in the future.

• Hape Flower Press Art DIY Kit

Let your child create their own art collection with the Hape Flower Press Art DIY Kit. They can use the included paints, brush and stickers to turn dried plants into colorful works of art. This eco-friendly wooden toy promotes creativity, sustainability, and exploration of more complex understandings such as patterns and biological processes.

• Hape Hide-And-Seek Periscope

See without being seen with this cool Hape Hide-And-Seek Periscope. This lightweight and easy-to-use toy comes with a handy wrist strap. It's a fantastic tool for your little nature outdoor explorer that can introduce visual aids as an essential piece of technology in investigation and research.

• Hape Natural Detective Set

Let your kids get a close-up look at leaves, bugs and the rest of nature with the handy Hape Natural Detective Set with up to 4x magnifying glass! They can use the two tones on the whistle to tell their friends when they find something unusual or interesting. It's a great toy to inform, investigate, and explore the beauty of nature.

• Hape Pocket Swing

Relax and have fun with your children out in nature with this fun, portable, and sturdy Hape Pocket Swing Set. Once you have set it up between two mighty trees, it will provide your kids a swing they can have hours of entertainment. It's also an ideal place them to sit while basking in the beauty of nature.

• Hape Adjustable Telescope

The Hape Adjustable Telescope features up to 8x zoom lens to get a closer look at interesting distant objects. It is crafted from sustainable bamboo and comes with a handy wrist wrap and a storage bag for an impromptu nature getaway. It's an essential tool to introduce your curious child to the basic concepts of biology.