Erica Fiendell, one of our Account Managers at Natural Pod recently attended The Wonder of Learning Exhibition and brought home these reflections from her time there about the wonder of natural play.
In our world of instant gratification and often wasteful consumerism, it can be a little hard to get outside of the need to ‘get more stuff’. Indeed, as a parent, one major challenge I had to face as a new mum was the habit of over-researching and feeling guilty if I wasn’t following the directives for helping my baby meet her development milestones. I had to almost force myself to toss out the books, ignore the noisy, light-up toys, and trust my instincts.
This was what spoke to me most about the Wonder of Learning exhibition. Remember when we were kids? Remember exploring outdoors for hours? I remember bringing home beautiful rocks and shells, lovingly collected for my secret stash of precious objects. I remember gathering fall leaves and making collages. I remember what it was like to explore, discover and be fascinated.
It can be so simple to provide children with the tools they need to discover themselves, and the world around them. Children are wonderfully intuitive, adventurous and confident. The Wonder of Learning exhibition illustrated this for me in such a marvelous way – by simply providing children with a problem to solve or a medium to explore on their own or collaboratively, you allow them to take responsibility for their goals, to make their own wonderful discoveries, and to form their own conclusions.
After all, in a world saturated with information, a little wonder is really what we need,
Erica Fiendell – Natural Play Account Manager
Natural Pod | Inspiring natural play spaces, furniture and toys for children.