Young children and animals share something remarkable: an immediate, instinctive connection. Long before a child can explain why they love animals, they are drawn to them, fascinated by them, and moved to care for them. Learning about animals in the early years is not just about facts and names. It is one of the most powerful ways we can nurture empathy, curiosity, and a sense of responsibility in young children.
World Animal Day, celebrated each year on 4th October, is a wonderful prompt for nurseries and families to bring animals a little closer to the centre of children's learning. At Footsteps Nurseries in Chingford, Leytonstone, Walthamstow, and Leyton, animals are a regular and beloved part of life, from the creatures we discover in our gardens to the topics children bring in from home.
What Children Learn Through Animals
The relationship between young children and animals is developmentally rich in ways that are easy to overlook.
Empathy and Emotional Intelligence
Animals are wonderful teachers of empathy because they communicate through body language, sound, and behaviour rather than words. A child who learns to read whether a dog is nervous or a bird is frightened is practising exactly the kind of attunement to non-verbal cues that underpins emotional intelligence. They are learning to step outside themselves and ask: how is this other being feeling right now?
Responsibility and Gentle Care
Even the smallest act of caring for a living creature, filling a bird feeder, watering a plant that a caterpillar lives on, leaving a log pile undisturbed for beetles, teaches children that their actions have consequences for others. This is the root of environmental stewardship and one of the most important lessons we can pass on.
Language and Communication
Animals are endlessly fascinating conversation starters. Children who are ordinarily quiet will often open up when talking about a pet or an animal they have seen. The vocabulary that builds around animals, habitats, behaviours, needs, is rich and varied, and the motivation to learn it is entirely intrinsic.
Scientific Curiosity
How does a caterpillar become a butterfly? Why do hedgehogs hibernate? Where do urban foxes sleep? These questions, which children ask naturally and passionately, are the beginning of scientific thinking. Encouraging them is one of the most valuable things we can do.
Animals the Children Care For
Every spring, our settings come alive with new arrivals. We run our caterpillar-to-butterfly programme, watching the full transformation unfold over weeks, a process that never loses its magic however many times a practitioner has seen it. We also hatch chicks each year, with the children helping to care for them from their very first hours.
Our African land snails are a year-round favourite. Children can handle them gently, watch them feed, and observe them up close, and they are wonderfully low-maintenance companions for a busy nursery room. Every one of these encounters doubles as a lesson in hygiene and care: washing hands, being gentle, understanding that a living creature depends on us doing things properly.
We use clear tanks throughout so children can observe without disturbing, the natural world visible but respected. And we take the learning outside as well, with nature trips that let children see all of this happening where it really belongs.
Animals at Footsteps: What the Children Discover
You do not need a farm visit to give children meaningful encounters with animals. Our nursery gardens in East London are alive with wildlife for those who take the time to look.
Robins that return to the same corner of the garden. Worms that emerge after rain. Spiders spinning webs in the early morning. Butterflies drawn to flowering plants. Foxes who pass through in the evening. These small, urban encounters are genuine wildlife experiences, and children who are taught to notice them develop a lasting attentiveness to the natural world.
We also make the most of what East London has to offer beyond our gates. The wetlands, parks, and green corridors of Waltham Forest provide extraordinary opportunities for children to observe animals in their natural habitats, from the wildfowl at Walthamstow Wetlands to the insects and birds of Epping Forest.
How Families Can Nurture a Love of Animals at Home
Start With What's Already There
Gardens, parks, window boxes, and even pavements are full of animal life. A magnifying glass and a willingness to lie on the grass is all you need. Make a habit of noticing: the pigeons on the roof, the worm after the rain, the spider in the bathroom. These moments cost nothing and mean everything.
Be Mindful Around Unfamiliar Animals
Teaching children to approach animals calmly and gently, to ask before touching, to read body language, and to give animals space when they need it, is both a safety lesson and an empathy lesson. The same attentiveness that keeps a child safe around a nervous dog is what makes them a thoughtful, caring human being.
Let Children Lead the Learning
If your child becomes passionately interested in a particular animal, follow it. Library books, nature documentaries watched together, trips to local parks or wildlife centres: interest-led learning is the deepest kind, and the enthusiasm children bring to their favourite animals is extraordinary.
- Visit Walthamstow Wetlands for a brilliant introduction to wildfowl and wetland habitats, free entry and very close to our Walthamstow setting
- Explore the ancient woodland of Epping Forest, accessible from Chingford, for birds, insects, deer and fungi
- Check out the RSPB's garden wildlife resources online for simple ideas to attract and support urban wildlife at home
A World Worth Caring For
World Animal Day is ultimately about more than animals. It is about teaching the next generation that the world is full of beings whose lives matter, and that we have both the power and the responsibility to treat them with kindness.
At Footsteps, we believe that a child who has learned to notice a worm, to be gentle with a frightened creature, and to ask questions about why animals matter, is a child who will grow up to care about the world in the broadest sense.
And that feels like one of the most important things we can help them become.
