Building Relationships with Our Environment and Connection to Place
Through close encounters with spiders, dramatic play, and sensory exploration, children deepened their understanding of care, responsibility, and connection to place while building empathy and shared respect for the natural world.
By Shannon Emery, ECE
Guiding Questions
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How do we build relationships?
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What is our role in our relationship with the environment?
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How do we care for living things?
One month into our school year, it has been a joy to watch the children’s curiosities and interests unfold as we explore big ideas such as connection to place and building relationships with our environment. As we tug on the thread of “relationship,” themes of connection and care continue to emerge in both subtle and significant ways.
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Through our time outdoors, we have encountered countless spiders—nestled in sidewalk bushes, tucked into alleyway ivy, and stretched between cedar branches in the forest. These encounters have sparked thoughtful observations and rich questions from the children:
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“The spider isn’t on its web… maybe it’s out for breakfast!”
“Why are there so many spiders right now?”
“How do they build their web?”
“Look, it has something in its web!”
“How will that wasp get out of the web?!”
“It got away, it got away!”
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These moments of curiosity naturally turn into opportunities for deeper connection and reflection. We remind one another: this is their habitat, and the web is their home.​​​​
“Step back, give the spider space. Don’t break the web.”
“Shhh, talk quietly so we don’t scare the spider.”​
What is most meaningful is that these gentle reminders begin to come from the children themselves. A shared culture of care begins to take root—care that is peer-led, intentional, and empathetic.
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To extend these noticings, we invited the children to draw their observations of spiders and reflect on each other’s creations. Soon, the spiders had names, personalities, and stories. The inquiry evolved into dramatic play, chasing games, and imaginative webs of storytelling.
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Recently, we brought in ropes and yarn to simulate the building of a spider’s web. This offered a sensory and embodied way to experience what it might feel like to be a spider or a trapped fly:
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“It’s my turn! Oh no, I’m stuck!”
Laughter echoed as children wriggled through tangled webs, fully immersed in the physicality of play and discovery.​
This inquiry reminds us that learning happens in many ways. It’s not only about looking and noticing, reading and writing—but also sensing, feeling, and moving. As Loris Malaguzzi wrote in his well-known poem about the 100 languages of children:
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“The child is made of one hundred. The child has a hundred languages, a hundred hands, a hundred thoughts, a hundred ways of thinking, of playing, of speaking.”
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At the heart of our work is the belief that children deserve the freedom to explore, connect, and express themselves in ways that honour their unique ways of being. We can’t wait to see where this inquiry leads next.