A blustery windy day can bring a whole new dimension of fun, exploring, observing, thinking, wondering, and learning to children’s outdoor play.
Knowing the weather forecast can help you prepare and plan for young children’s outdoor play time in a way that will help to foster and nurture their active and curious little minds and being able to observe what the wind does is quite a thrill for little ones. All these everyday wonders are new and so exciting for them. Here are a few simple ideas that I have enjoyed with little ones on windy days.
A bag of dry leaves that were gathered up ahead of time to have on hand for windy weather quickly transform into memorable moments as the little ones grab them in their hands and toss them up into the air for the wind to carry away and blow all over the place while they laugh and giggle.
A bubble blower can be extra fun when the wind is strong as if held in the right direction, you don’t have to blow at all, but the wind does all the blowing. I recently enjoyed about twenty minutes of absolute carefree joy with my preschoolers who were spellbound watching me dip the bubble blower into the bottle and then holding it up. We watched and giggled as we saw the wind blow loads of bubbles up and away into the air. It’s magical moments just like these that I especially treasure and love about working with children. Their ability to be completely absorbed in a moment of pure joy is something that always uplifts me and makes my day.
A bag or bowl of bits and bobs that they can experiment tossing up into the air to see which ones float away and which ones don’t is a lovely bit of sensory play that can fully engage young children if the topic has interested them.
As with all learning through play ideas, it very much depends on children’s current interests and the key to meaningful learning is to align the materials and resources for their play with what they are interested in exploring at the time. I had a class of preschoolers who were very curious about the wind, so I kept this in mind as we went about our indoor play and learning. I saved up a few light things that would probably float away in the wind, little bits of crepe paper, colored feathers, shiny wrapping paper, ribbon, tissue, etc. I also gathered a couple things that were heavier. We chatted in our circle time making guesses and predictions about what they thought would float up in the wind and what might be too heavy for the wind to carry away.
Dancing ribbon streamers are great fun for little ones to run and play with outdoors as watch and see what the wind does to the ribbons. For little ones who love unicorns and flying horses, these simple objects also inspire lots of magical pretend play ideas.
These can also be easily made by tying ribbons onto small child-sized plastic coat hangers or cutting a paper plate in half and punching a few holes through the plate and stringing anything colourful that the wind might catch and blow about through it such as ribbons, coloured yarn, crepe paper. Something small that little ones can hold in their own hands and wave about is just wonderful for them.
Small plastic coat hangers that are great everyday objects that you can make wind chimes or mobiles with the children. The children enjoy watching the shapes and colours blow about in the wind.
Things like stainless steel play kitchen items or any plastic or metal play objects that can be strung up and tied to the coat hanger. For little ones, getting to listen the different kinds of sounds that different objects make when the wind blows on them makes for meaningful learning.