Exploration through walking for young learners

WORKING w i t h young learners can expand repertoire of interactions by thinking about the places in the community that can be educationally. Young learners are always learning when they touch, see, hear and smell. It is important to have them experience new things in their own environment. The environment in which a child spends their time plays an important role in brain development.

Children’s experiences create synaptic connections that build cognitive, social and emotional structure that will serve as foundation for their progress in life.

Exploration can be done anywhere and anytime without special or expensive car rather than a comfortable pair of shoes. Walking with children must be planned out in advance or chaos will reign. Walking is very valuable learning experiences for all ages and also lots of fun is present. It is an investment for life, developing road awareness in time of independent walking for learning, increased motivation for learning and creating good habits for an active life. It helps keep children in mind as well as body, helping to boast child’s mind and self-esteem visiting through walking to the different areas in the community helping the children begin appreciating the cultural diversity and support their desire to gain information from their surroundings. It is fantastic activity for young children to develop wider social involvement. Young learners can be free, spontaneous and it is a great way to spend time together with friends that is not usually experienced inside their own classrooms.

New interest, new skills and new ideas are created once there was none. An exploration can exhibit and inspire one child to draw and another to build things. Through walking, imagination will be more develop that young children must have and all it may take is that one sparks of attractionsomething that the child relates to without perhaps even knowing why. Julie B. Sal-oen