Naturalist Intelligence

My son Ty (he is almost 4 years) has a huge interest concerning anything he can sort: cars, blocks, trucks, books, tractors, crayons--if they are the same concept but different, he will organize it. I normally attribute this as a mathematical-logical strength, but I try to hit different intelligences when possible. 

Since another love of Ty's is nature (like any little boy, he will dig in dirt and run outside for hours), I wanted to weave some of his passions together. I found a way to use his naturalist intelligence, which deals with sensing patterns in and making connections to elements in nature. Combining the two, I did think of a way to involve two of Ty's passions-organizing and dirt, or mathematical-logical and naturalistic intelligences.  

Sorry for the darkness! The green container (it is the hardest to see) is 'trash'-the rest is recycling! All of it!!

Enter Christmas. We attend at least six Christmas celebrations, including ours. At each one, our children receive gifts from others. (My husband and I try to limit this, but no ploy has worked. I suppose we could have worse problems). The amount of stuff does not bother me, mostly because we do a huge donation for some of our church's outreach programs and I don't have any qualms about giving away "too nice" of toys. What really bothers me is the packaging, the sheer amount of trash.

This year, very little of the packaging went in the actual trash. Ty and I sorted it into the recycling bins, paper and plastic. He was thrilled that the trash would not hurt the ground, which is what he gathered from our environmental discussion.


As a bonus, my brother gave Ty (or Za, I am not sure) the books "The Five Senses" which is about the environment.
 


All of the combination led to a very happy little Ty and mama. Do you ever try to "hit" on your child's intelligences at the same time? How?