First, the role of nature in children's physical education.
The natural environment has a calming effect on children's nervous system. Gorky, a famous writer, once said, "The forest can often arouse my inner peace and happy mood, so all my sadness will disappear in this mood and make me forget all the unpleasant things." Mountains and rivers in the natural environment are good conditions for children to do physical exercise. Children can't get physical exercise indoors all day, but they can only exercise outdoors, breathe fresh air and bathe in the sunshine of zerg, and fully exercise the coordination and flexibility of the body and the adjustment ability of the nervous system by running, jumping and crawling. At the same time, vision, hearing and touch have been greatly exercised and improved. This has been verified by the Blue Book: in many surveys on outdoor game activities to improve various abilities, more than 90% of the children interviewed recognized many options, including increasing curiosity, becoming healthier, improving hands-on ability, making new friends, playing better than before, expanding knowledge structure, becoming stronger, liking nature more, improving self-care ability and becoming happier. Make the child's body develop healthily.
Second, the role of nature in children's intellectual education
Nature is a rich source of children's initial knowledge. Everything in the natural environment is intuitive and concrete, so that children can understand what it is and what they are exposed to. Nature promotes children's cognitive and thinking development. Rousseau pointed out: "Life is not breathing, but activity, that is, using our organs, using our feelings, our talents, and all the parts that make us feel our existence." We should try our best to let children acquire knowledge in activities that promote physical and mental development. Rousseau pays attention to the function of activities, especially emphasizes the principle of intuitive teaching, and opposes excessive reading and reading useless books. Too many books make us stop reading the world. He believes that only by direct contact and observation can children understand the meaning of things. This proposition is undoubtedly a great progress in opposing feudal education to instill book knowledge that is divorced from real life. Rousseau advocated educating children through life experience. For example, when children make mistakes, we should use the "natural consequences method", "let everyone know that we can't punish children just to punish them, and let them feel that these punishments are the natural consequences of their bad behavior." Children will find their own mistakes and correct them after they feel inconvenient or painful through personal experience. Therefore, in the process of education, we should make full use of the indoor natural corner and the outdoor educational function of being close to nature, take children out all year round, improve cognitive ability, exercise senses and develop thinking. Everything in the natural environment is inextricably linked, and when children enter the second step to understand their internal relations through the first step of observation, their thinking is also developed.
Third, the role of nature in children's moral education
The natural environment can build children's love for the motherland and hometown. The most unforgettable thing for a person is a wonderful childhood, and the most unforgettable thing is the landscape of his hometown. Li Siguang, a famous geologist, refused generous remuneration and material conditions from abroad, overcame many difficulties and resolutely returned to the still poor and backward motherland to devote himself to the geological cause of the motherland. It is precisely because he has not forgotten the homeland where he lived as a child, the hometown where he was born and raised, the rivers he swam in as a child, and the mountains and rivers where cattle were spared. This love for hometown also stems from some pleasant childhood experiences and nostalgia for nature, which has produced profound memories.
In addition, the natural environment can also promote the development of children's social emotions. In the activities of nature, children need to have a certain degree of perseverance, not afraid of hardship, but also need mutual unity and cooperation between peers. Cultivating the spirit of cooperation and mutual assistance plays a positive role in the development of moral education. Therefore, educating children in the natural environment can not only make them acquire higher knowledge, but also make them have emotional experience and touch their emotional world, laying the foundation for the formation of children's moral concepts and forming good moral quality. Richard Love, the author of The Last Child in the Woods, also expounded this point in his book.
Fourthly, the role of natural environment in children's aesthetic education.
Modern people often say that natural beauty is beauty carved without any modification. And this is exactly what the natural environment has. The colors, sounds, shapes and smells in the natural environment are all true, such as the blue sky, changeable weather, lush green grass, blooming flowers, rich orchards, strong crops, magnificent mountains and rivers, birds and flowers, etc. It is very attractive to children, let them feel what is beautiful, cultivate their sentiment and cultivate their aesthetic ability. Ushinski once called Fragrant Fields, Spring of Roses and Autumn of Violets "educators".