Identifying Barriers: Beginning to Overcome them!

At the recent SOAR conference we had a discussion about the things that made it challenging to create great outdoor opportunities for children, especially if you were a  licensed care provider.  Here were some of the challenges that our group identified:

Creating a "sit space" that is quiet and private for children to enjoy contemplation and private thoughts - since areas need to be visible
Water play is basically out, since you can't have standing water
Bikes might be a possibility but helmets are a challenge to manage
Sense of green space when surrounded by buildings on all sides
Not enough natural elements
Can't jump in leaf piles
Fear of insects and general safety 

Although their were suggestions:

Such as what about planting native plants or gardens around the border of the play area
Using a hose for "watering" and occasionally adding water to the sand area or for small amounts of play
Having a helmet for all students, see if they can be donated by the children's hospital
Filling the sensory table with different elements: from acorns, to maple seeds, to leaves

Even many of the ideas that are suggested in the Green Hearts documents were hard to incorporate with licensing

25 Easy Nature Play Ideas for Early Childhood Centers  

And so, somehow we need to do some type of activism to the Department of Licensing especially when it is so clear that the latest Department of Early Learning Washington State Early Learning and Development Guidelines   show  how  Exploring Outdoors is a great way for Interrelated Learning across the six areas of development:

1. About me and my family and culture

2. Building relationships

3.Touching, seeing, hearing and moving a round

4. Growing up healthy

5. Communicating

6. Learning about my World

Getting Dirt in the Diet and Recess

Last Friday I gave a presentation at the SOAR conference sharing the importance of nature and outdoor time for kids.  I feel so passionately about this issue that I am not sure what my next activism piece will be; however, I definitely want to share two great links.

One is an article is  on the importance of dirt, even in our diet. 
 
The second article is on what is happening to recess time right in Seattle.  This news link strikes me as particularly relevant because I am passionate about outdoor play for children.  This passion was sparked after one of the high poverty elementary schools I worked at canceled afternoon recess.  Then I went to a wealthier school across town and the kids had so much more outdoor time.

 It begs looking at: what makes successful recess?  What kinds of play is promoted?  And is there a greenspace /  or natural area for children to play in?   According to so much research outside time, access to green space,  and physical activity promotes learning.    We have to stop looking at recess as just a "break" - it is an important part of the school day and for many kids it is what keeps them excited about school.  The goal needs to be: how do we make recess better ?

Rocks, gravel, dirt and water: Boys make a Lake

 

My boys always amaze me.  Yesterday they were digging holes and filling them with water.  Then they would sometimes make channels and watch the water flow out.  S made the comment that he needed to load up rocks and dirt and gravel to haul it away in his little dump truck.  I thought his vocabulary for a describing soil was remarkable.  The National Wildlife Federation encourages children's play in dirt and even have written a report on the benefits of dirt!   So this play is good for physical, mental and academic development.  This play is perfect preparation for the fifth grade Land and Water Unit I taught when I taught fifth grade.  If only so all my students had had so much time exploring dirt- the models that we made in the classroom would have had even more meaning. 

This play is also great preparation for being a farmer and understanding whether your soil is going to be ready for planting. 

A sense of place

    I love it when our normal routines are comfortably stretched.  Recently we have had a couple of opportunities to have gone further into Seward Park than the border trails we have followed in the past.  Joyfully, we have found a cleaner beach than that towards the entrance of the park.   On this occasion the boys also found  a gaggle of geese and great grassy reeds to use as fishing poles.  These discoveries would not have been made if we did not have friends to show us where they like to go. 

In order to connect the new locations with the paths we usually travel I drew a map of our trip for the children when we got back home,  I started at our door and included the bus we took to get to the park.  I labeled pictures and added details as they suggested.  Then we read it as a story.   The boys enjoyed my crude art and it allowed them to see that even though the route we explored was different it connected to what they knew.

Tide pooling

This past week was a great week for tide pooling. It motivated us to take a twenty minute drive and get to the beach. The lesson learned is that it takes many trips (maybe a lifetime) to the beach to fully appreciate its wonders. In my boys' three years they have probably only been to the beach a dozen times- and not to the same one. Therefore, low tide was not as special to them as to me. Why should the creatures of the inter tidal zone be any more special than those higher up the beach?

It was a slow journey out to the best tide pooling. First we has to stop at the driftwood...and then the sand-as pictured here and the only reason we were this far out was because of a preschooler named Mathew said, "come with me and I will show you where to find hermit crabs!" My own boys were slight interested in the crabs.  They know a bit about them from various stories we have read & from playing with a hermit crab puppet, but in real life at that moment they were no sure that they were ready to gently touch these living creatures.  Only after playing in various areas ( digging in sand/ pretnd fishing in a tidepool, splashing in puddles ) did they finally decide that tide pooling was quite great especially if it meant PLAYING!

Keeping our Neighborhoods Safe

One of the reasons that I choose to walk with my children almost everywhere we go is because it is good for neighborhoods to have people walking the streets.  It makes them feel vibrant.   It is also just good for us. It allows my family to feel connected to people and nature.  Every walk we go on it seems that we meet at least someone we know and exchange greetings and updates.  We also always notice at least one thing about the environment that is different.   This is important.  I write this listening to the birds.  Both of my boys woke up at the sound of the first bird of the day  and while luckily they have gone back to sleep, the birds continue to sing for me and I am glad.  In 1962 Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring.   The title refers to a spring without birds singing (due to pesticide, DDT in particular).  In 2012 it is up to us to pay attention to our world.  Are we changing it? For the worse or for the better?  Our walks are a check in.

Last night for example our boys said, "Can we go on an after dinner walk?"  Even though both my husband and I were tired and I had a headache; it sounded like a beautiful idea.  The boys  even requested the urban greenspace they wanted to go to.   My husband and I looked at each other with a question.  We have debated it before:  the loop we take when we walk this greenspace takes us through a drug trafficing center.  While mostly this activity has ignored us it has felt uncomfortable at times.  We also have even had to detour the greenspace when teenage activities not appropriate for young children were taking place.  Nevertheless, it is our urban park and in it are native plants that even I assisted in planting ten years ago.   It is also a park where before we even get out the door S says "I want to sit on my log and rest when we get by the big tree."  We all know this park.  So we went.

The journey to the park was lovely.  A friend pulled over in her car and talked to us.  We talked and made our way up a giant hill and even though S kept saying he was so tired, he only required carrying for a short while.   Then we wandered the greenspace.  We were all in awe how in the past month everything had filled out.  It was so green!  And somehow all the green revealed to us new pathways we had never noticed.  It was lovely.  Then we were out.  As we headed home we had to make our way down a long block which bordered the greenspace and we noticed two men standing, smoking, shifting back and forth obviously waiting for us to pass by.   It was uncomfortable and of course the boys wanted to dawdle more than ever.  When S said when we passed some stumps,  "this is where we used to picnic," I was sure he was going to sit down and want a snack- but we went on.  As soon as we finished the block I took a look back.  The men were gone.  They had disappeared into the woods.  They were not hiking.   A camp?  A stash?     

I wonder if it was wrong to go on this route?  Mostly I think it was right.  We just need more people doing the same thing.   Enjoying the evening light.  Getting to know neighbors.  Listening to the sounds of our neighborhood.  Solving community problems together and making our neighborhood safe and comfortable for everyone. 

Little bird, Little bird

The sound of a hummingbird is distinct.  It sounds like a buzz, but it is not like the buzz of mosquitoes that I heard growing up.   It is the sound of a fast moving bird.  The males when doing their mating dance dives can go up to 51 mph and make a loud squeak with their outer tail feathers.  

This spring we had the marvelous opportunity to not only see the male mating dance, but then the female made a nest and raised two chicks right in our holly tree.  Today as we walked the yard we heard the buzz.  Although the Anna's Hummingbird momma and her two chicks had disappeared quite quickly after their birth, today I think we saw the juvenile.  It was not as colorful as a fully developed hummingbird and it seemed even smaller than the typical minute adult.  Lucky for us it perched.  First I lifted S and he saw it.  Then I lifted T to see it -- in a branch only about 8 feet away.   I don't know if it is as impressive to them- the petite quality and yet the strength of this bird.    I am always held in awe.  Today I was especially pleased because I am hopeful it is one of those 2 little babies that you can see poking their heads out of the small moss/ lichen covered and spider web lined nest in the picture.

Seeing a hummingbird so closely- and noticing its long beak reminds me of how to teach kids how to identify birds and understand their adaptations by their beaks.   Basically use tools as a metaphor, for example from project wild :
Hummingbirds
Use long, slender beaks to probe flowers for nectar
Use a Turkey baster or eye dropper and then for their foodTall vase or cylinder with colored water

Beach Time

The intention today was to make it to low tide at the beach, but Saturdays mornings are sometimes slow at our house and we missed the low tide point by a couple of hours.  I was disappointed, however I need to remember that just going to the beach is wonderful enough.  It didn't take long for our family and dear friend Martha to find a perfect driftwood "train log" as the boys called it.  S & T were content to play imaginary games while the "grown-ups" talked.  Sitting on a train log is much like wandering slowly with a friend- words just seem to spill out to one another: dreams discussed and plans made.  Every once and a while someone notices something on the horizon and everyone stops to watch.  Today we saw many sails unfurled as the boats pulled out of the nearby marina.

Slow time.

I realize that my original intentions for the day was to "show" the boys tide pools, but that would have just been too much for the day.  We did exactly what we needed to.  In the Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature (a book I have just begun reading- that feels like talking to an old friend). There is a section on the importance of both wandering and unstructured time. Within it is a great quote by Wendell Berry from his Essay An Entrance to the Woods

"The faster one goes, the more strain there is on the senses, the more they fail to take in, the more confusion they must tolerate or gloss over-and the longer it takes to bring the mind to a stop in the presence of anything."

One day we will wander further than the train log...but it will not be without some intention, a good picnic and planned dawdling along the way.

A trip to Muir Woods

Our family traveled this weekend to California and lucky to get to go with grandma to the Muir Woods. The trees there are amazing! The interesting challenge with young children in seeing such a place is that the forest is preserved like a museum and not so much of a touch and explore forest- rather a contemplate and observe place.

Luckily S and t love bridges and water and so while the adults gaped at the trees the boys tried to find the start of the river- and guided us down the trail next to the water, inspired by the bridges... and then there would be the occasional tree that you could go inside and the boys were awed! "A house!" they called out. We talked about all the animals that must come out when the humans go home. We also found plants like we have at home in our woods. It was great that the boys identified with the sword fern, the horse tail, and the thimbleberry reminding me that each experience in nature connects to one another.

And when the time came to enter "the cathedral" where you are supposed to be quiet out of reverence the boys did a fantastic job.