Earthing in Nature play is about encouraging children to connect to the elemental earth.
To heighten their senses, stimulate acupressure points, practice peace and presence, hone focus skills, mindfully breathe and align with their environment as one.
This experience allows children to focus on the things around them, rather than on the thoughts and feelings that are distressing them.
“In nature, there is something marvelous.” – Aristotle
What Is Grounding?
Grounding, also known as earthing, is a therapeutic technique that involves doing activities that “ground” or energetically reconnect you to the earth.
This practice relies on earthing science and grounding physics to explain how electrical charges from the earth can have positive effects on your body.
Grounding is one of the most powerful and simplest things you can do to improve your health.
Benefits of Earthing
This conductive contact of the body with the earth can have intriguing benefits on our physiology, such as;
- Tapping into the earth’s energy;
- Absorbing Vitamin D;
- Stimulating pressure points and the nervous system;
- Reducing anxiety and depression;
- Strengthening joints and muscles;
- Reducing pain; and
- Connecting with nature.
Natural Elements At Our Back Door
One of our main themes in this age group is emotions. Understanding them, releasing them, regulating them and managing them.
We don’t have to venture too far to connect with mother nature as we have a purpose built environmental yard with real grass, dirt, timber logs and bark along with other natural material like sand. Unintentional grounding is a daily experience for us, as our program is often taught in our outdoor classroom. However, we thought an intentional grounding exercise would benefit our toddlers, with a focus on senses, presence and calming techniques meshed in with our bush kindy focus.
What we did next
We ventured barefoot into the yard, feeling the cool, crisp grass under our feet. Then for some contrast, venturing into the dirt before laying on the grass with our eyes closed. We focused on being present asking the children questions like;
- What they felt;
- What they could hear;
- What could they smell; and
- How does lying on the grass make them feel?
The skills of Grounding is a life skill that the children can utilise time and time again. In fact, since our intentional grounding experience, the children choose to go and lie on the grass in free time play, just so they can close their eyes and take in nature.
Ways to Incorporate Grounding at Home
- Walking barefoot – whether this is on grass, sand, or even mud, allowing your skin to touch the natural ground can provide you with grounding energy.
- Lying on the ground – this increases your skin to earth contact.
- Submersing in water – simply wading in a clear lake or swimming in the ocean is a way to ground yourself.
Looking forward to hearing about your experiences in the comments below.
That is all this month from Miss Jodie, Miss Sabrina and the Dolphins (Gwonda) children.
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