Beach Play

Is Nature Play

K loves sunny days and beach play. They are even more exciting when a friend comes along.
The weather this Sunday was warm, but not quite hot enough to get too wet.
Our normally quiet beach had a few people sharing it, but still had stretches where Natti could roam off the leash and not disturb anybody. K and C had fun running along the beach.

It's great for K to spend some time playing with kids that are older than her. They play in new creative ways that K has not been exposed to, thereby expanding her own imagination. C collected shells and created a shell city in the sand. K watched this new way of creating and playing with shells with interest and I fully expect this learning will see new shell play from K in the future.

There is a little creek that runs into the ocean. K normally enjoys this creek even more than the beach itself. When it has rained considerably, the creek flows quite fast right up to the water's edge. Today it was still flowing, but I imagine it won't be long until it dries up. The creek has nice cool sand for building, worms and bugs to discover, stones and shells to find in the flowing water and it is fun to follow the water and the gully it creates right up to the waves.

Today a largish log laying near the creek provided an interesting tool to play with.

It was quite heavy, but K managed to manipulate it to where she wanted it to lay.

Mum was a chicken and suggested a sloping, slippery bridge might end in tears.

So the bridge was relocated to safer (flatter) ground.

Having older kids around, definitely encourages greater risk taking, which is fantastic. K has only recently tried climbing trees after seeing C so skillfully scale a variety of leafy vegetation. C showed K how to jump from the top of a small sand hill - the bank of the creek.

I'm sure K would not have tried this by herself, but boy did she have fun.

Thanks C for sharing the afternoon beach walk with us. In a short time, you encouraged new skills in K that I look forward to building upon during our next walk.

K has a lot of interaction with children her own age, both at Kindy and Daycare. Most of the families we know have children the same age and younger. I think I need to find some more play dates with children slightly older than K so that further play skills and risk taking can be role modelled and enjoyed.