- Help children to notice and discuss patterns around them, eg tree bark, flower petal or leaf shapes, grates, covers, or bricks.
- Examine change over time, for example, growing plants, and change that may be reversed, eg melting ice.
- Use appropriate words, eg town, village, path, house, flat, cinema, skyscraper, hydrant, cirrus, cumulonimbus, temple and synagogue, to help children make distinctions in their observations.
- Help children to find out about the environment by talking to people, examining photographs and simple maps and visiting local places.
- Encourage children to express opinions on natural and built environments and give opportunities for them to hear different points of view on the quality of the environment.
- Encourage the use of words that help children to express opinions, eg busy, quiet and pollution.
- Use correct terms so that, eg children will enjoy naming a chrysalis if the educator uses its correct name.
- Pose carefully framed open-ended questions and prompts, such as How can we…? What would happen if…? I wonder….
