God create animals for the benefit of human beings. We can get inspiring teaching methods derived from the animal world too. One easy way is through animal story books and films which are very easy to find. My children know almost all common animals, other than cats, dogs, chickens, birds, house lizards and certain insects that are many in our neighborhood, from books and films too.
Ninta was quite 'lucky'. When she was small (Aqmal and Rania weren't born yet), our family was like those typical new families with small children who believed that family outings were the best way of introducing new experiences to the children.
We took her to Taman Safari Indonesia in Puncak several times where there used to be a polar bear in a transparent water pool with its icy surrounding. I can still remember vividly that Ninta stood not far from me while I carried one of her younger cousins right next to the high transparent wall of the pool to see the big animal swam around.
We frequently spent a night at Anyer beach and of course swam there too.
We let Ninta rode on horse back in Bandung and visited Ragunan Zoological Park and Bandung Zoo.
Aqmal's only visits to Taman Safari Indonesia and the Ragunan Zoological Park were during his school excursions when he's in 4th grade (every one else in his class had already been to those places before) cause we didn't go out much anymore, except for a trip to Bali and Lombok once.
Rania has never been to any of those places even until now. My husband and I are getting older and hence non-adventurous destinations are more suitable for us now. Luckily, we have a lot of books at home.
"Nature in Danger" of the Childcraft series is one of Rania's favorite books. I keep the book (along with the others within the Childcraft series) with special care and let Rania take it whenever she wants it. She will then bring the book from one room to another, open its pages and ask me to read it together several time every day.
I find the book - together will Rania's other animal story books - very helpful in explaining various topics :
- animals under threat of extinction
- mammals
- animals that lay eggs
- their food
- their habitats: rain forest, savanna, dessert etc
- how to avoid certain animals from extinction
- sounds of different animals
I'm aiming not only at her intellectual and physical development but her social and emotional education too, by focusing on certain pictures such as pictures of a baby orang utan carried by its mother or a baby blue whale swims closely to its mother. I hug Rania closely in my arms and answer her queries promptly.
I sometimes continue the book reading activity with making an animal paper origami. Rania will play and talk with the paper animal by herself. This way she does not get bored with one specific book easily. I made these two whales by following an online origami tutorial
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| Whale paper origami |
The animal world is full of fascination, especially for young children!
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