More Nature Activities

I was browsing the web today and realized there are some great nature blogs with outdoor activities for kids that I haven't checked out recently.

These are some great blogs and posts that I think you should check out:

Grass Stain Guru I love the Mystery Critters posts - if only I was better at guessing. Bethe provides great activities and insights for parents to take their kids outside. Importantly, she agrees that children should play outdoors using their imaginations!

Childhood101 is another fun site that posts include all sorts of ideas and activities to try with your children. The activities from this post are especially fun to for the outdoors.

Over the past year, we also have tried to post various nature activities to try with your children! What are some of your favorites?

I think it is great when parents share ideas of outdoor activities they have tried with their kids. Playing outdoors requires little to no work from parents. Children's imaginations are huge and they love to use them!

What other outdoor activities do you have?

Wednesday Evening at High Trails

We had such a nice day up here at High Trails! It was warm and sunny.

The discovery groups all went very well. We heard lots of good stories at lunch about finding crystals, shooting arrows, and making crafts. The students really seemed to learn a lot and enjoyed learning outdoors. For lunch we had chicken nuggets, pasta salad, and gooey Rice Krispie Treats.

We had recreation time after a second discovery group this afternoon. The students chose which hike they went on or game they played. It is important after a day of learning to be able to run around, enjoy nature, and play.

Everyone was ready for dinner tonight, which was roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn, coleslaw, homemade biscuits and honey butter, and butterscotch bars for dessert. It is not often friends get to sit together at a meal and share the adventures of their day. It is so fun to hear them excited about learning.

Tonight was the hoedown for everyone. The High Trails staff led semi-choreographed dances for the group. We always think its more fun to dance as a group or to dance with as many partners as you can in a short period of time, than stress about asking someone to dance.

After another snack in the cabin, everyone headed to bed ready for tomorrow's adventures!

Thursday Evening at High Trails

We finished another great night at High Trails! The snow has stopped and you can see the moon and stars. It is chilly outside, but everyone had fires in their cabins tonight and there was lots of marshmallow roasting!

Everyone had a good time on their discovery groups today. The cabins ate picnic lunches in their cabins with bagel sandwiches and more hot chocolate. We had lots of takers for sledding this afternoon! Marshmallow baseball was also a hit.

Everyone had their fill of ham, potatoes, peas, and fruit salad at dinner - with delicious cookies for dessert. The lodge was lively tonight with lots of conversation. It was fun to hear the highlights of everyone's day.

The skit night was very fun! Each cabin put together a skit, song, or dance - or all 3 - to share with the rest of the cabins. Each was different, and entertaining!

The weather looks better for tomorrow. While we have a short day, we have a few more activities planned for the morning before sending the students on their way.

Growing Up (in the) Wild

The No Child Left Inside Family Fun Day at Sanborn Western Camps was a huge success this last weekend. Over 100 parents, teachers, children and their friends enjoyed a beautiful, Colorado fall day amid the golden aspens and tall Ponderosa pines learning about animals, building forts, roasting marshmallows, playing games, and loving the outdoors and their time together.

I had the opportunity to be a participant on a few of the guided hikes with my own children and a few families from my son’s school. At one point, while hiking on the trail, one of my “mom friends” called out to our kids to “stay with the group, it might be dangerous up there.” Her comment gave me pause. Sure, as far as predators go, we’ve got our fair share: red-tailed hawks, coyotes, bobcats, and more. And yet I realized I am far more comfortable with my child running through the woods than I am with him running through the grocery store (trees don’t tend to give you disapproving looks, I suppose).

Her comment, however, is indicative of an unhealthy shift that makes moms into community pariahs, roaming kids into deviants, and “safe” kids into screen-watching, computer-clicking, tech-savvy individuals—who have limited confidence in themselves because they have not been able to interact and connect with other kids through real, unstructured, free-play types of activities in the outdoors.

While building a fort with our kids, another mother regaled me with a tale from her college days (mid 80’s) where their outdoor leadership club hitchhiked from Ohio to New Mexico to go backpacking for a week. “Of course, it was much safer then,” was her comment. Really? Or is it just easier to dismiss an act of borderline foolishness (or youthful ingenuity?) as typical of a different time—especially when that “time” itself didn’t involve the level of instant information (or dis-information) that exists right now.

As parents and as youth development professionals, it is our responsibility to take care of our kids and the kids enlisted to our care, and to help them become responsible, productive, happy adults. It is our responsibility to assimilate as much information as possible and make responsible decisions regarding the well-being of our kids and campers. It is also our responsibility to allow them the freedom to make mistakes, deal with consequences, and to feel empowered by the good choices they can and will make.

I can only hope that, when and if my kids have the opportunity to walk to school, or go on a Lone Vigil backpacking trip by themselves, or ride their bikes to a friend’s house (with or without a parent at home), I will have equipped them with enough information to make informed, wise decisions. And, if their decisions aren’t the best, that—with a loving heart--I can help them understand and deal with the consequences, then grow and learn from the experience. One of my favorite bloggers, Lenore Skenazy says, "That’s why it’s called “self-esteem.” Not “parent-assisted esteem.”

As we all watched our kids tripping over roots without tears, getting poked in the eye with branches and laughing, slipping on moss covered rocks and quickly dusting off pants, lifting heavy logs as a team, sharing a treasured feather with a friend, chatting together in the outdoor lunch buffet line, and safely leading each other on a blindfolded trust walk through an aspen grove—I think we all realized a lesson about how strong and powerful and wise our kids really can be….and already are.

What's In A Name? The Evolution of a Movement

What makes a trend? Where is “the tipping point" when the obscure becomes the mainstream? How do we collectively determine what is important to us as a global culture? And when are we called to action? The “green” movement has undergone a transformation from years of “grass roots” and individual efforts, to a widely discussed topic throughout all media sources and one that people are acting on in a broad way.

As we move ever closer to the beginning of the summer camp season, I am seeing a refreshing trend in conversations across the web. News outlets, bloggers, parents, summer camp staff and other professionals in the outdoor industry are talking about the importance of nature in the lives of our kids. By consolidating our voices, our message, our vision, and (maybe?) our name we can achieve a simple and very important goal: to get our children reconnected with the natural world.

The Children In Nature Network, Richard Louv, the ACA, and the National Wildlife Federation are some of the larger organizations and better known individuals providing momentum to the children in nature movement. Yet, in the current environment of lightning-fast information exchange through blogs and on social media platforms, the conversation is just as loud—if not louder. I wanted to share some of the lesser known groups and individuals I have found who are also doing their part to spread the word about the importance of authentic, nature experiences for our kids.

The blog at PlayOutdoors.com has an outstanding post regarding the “outdoor play movement” which details specific ideas to make getting outside with kids a habit, not a rarity. Another name for the movement is “free-range kids”—where parents are giving up their hovering, helicopter ways for an experience-based approach to childhood (imagine that!) which encourages problem-solving, independence, outdoor play and personal resilience. The Free-Range Kids blog and book by Lenore Skenazy hopes to “give our kids the freedom we had without going nuts with worry.” The Nature for Kids blog provides articles and resources for parents interested in becoming a part of a community of parents who detail just HOW they manage to get their families outside regularly. The Grass Stain Guru celebrates the messes, dirt, and experimentations of childhood, while Play Everything is an offshoot of the need for unstructured free play in the outdoors. There are even blogs—such as The Outdoor Parent —designed to celebrate the importance of the outdoors in the lives of children AND their parents. The Green Hour, from NWF, is yet another direction (another name) the movement has taken—just an hour a day of “outside time” will make a difference in the lives of your children. Urban parents who don’t have the opportunity to take hikes in the backcountry will really appreciate the tips and ideas for enjoying and appreciating nature in the city (podcasts are even available to download and listen to on your morning commute!)

Children In Nature. No Child Left Inside. Nature For Kids. The Green Hour. Free Range Kids. Outdoor Play Movement. Playwork. Free Play. The movement is multi-faceted, multi-dimensional, and based on these blogs, global. As long as the dialogue continues, then we will all learn to speak a common language—and one that will benefit the planet, relationships, our children, and the overall health and humanity of our global society.

“Free Play”: is this a new school activity?

On a Sunday evening this past summer I was hanging out with about ten 5^th grade boys at a campfire where we were grilling up some hotdogs. One of the boys went over to grab an armful of firewood. When he returned, he mentioned that he had an idea for a game we could play. He explained that we could slide the lid off the firewood box to create a gap at the top. We all needed to find three pinecones. We gathered our pinecones and got in line. We each had three throws to see who could get their pinecones through the gap in the box. We played one round when another boy spoke up and said that we needed a point system. Two other boys then suggested that if your cone goes in the gap of the box you get 3 points, if the cone lands and stays on the lid you get 2 points, and if the cone just hits the box you get 1 point. The game went on for an hour. We continued to play this game every Sunday during the summer and every time I line up to toss my pinecone, I am playing with a new set of rules. This is what I call “Free Play.”

“Free Play,” as scientists call it, is vital for children. Many children today do not have time to just play. Some are scheduled every minute of the day. According to a paper published in 2005 in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, children’s free-play time dropped by 25% between 1981 and 1997. Some parents are concerned about getting their kids into the right colleges at age 5; they are sacrificing playtime for more structured school and sports activities. Pre-school children are being enrolled in after-school music and drama classes. This crazy busy schedule is reducing time for the type of imaginative and rambunctious interaction that fosters creativity and cooperation.

Let’s give our children time to play, create, and innovate. Let’s provide our children with a foundation which helps them grow into high functioning, healthy adults. Let’s take our children outside and hand them a stick, a ball, and a box and see what game they create. 

What is “Free Play” to you?