Outdoor Play

Perhaps it is the sense of spring, even though it remains winter; in any case playing outside for hours and hours and hours on end has been easy for my boys these past few days.  The sun has been out. It has been relatively dry.  My twin boys have worked on digging their hole.  They have followed mom and dad around as we prune trees and pull the creeping invasive ivy that comes from the neighboring apartment building.  They have climbed in the trees.  They have sat under the bushes and yesterday they turned a pile of branches into first a train and later an airplane.

 I write this in part to suggest that kids don't need a lot of toys outside- although a few digging tools can help.  They just need time.  It is this unstructured time that children have lost so much of in recent years.   My family purposely tries to reclaim it.

The other day my not quite four year old T even said, "lets not go in any cars or on any trains...lets just stay in our yard today."

The boys know that true family time & true play time is right where we are, unstructured.  The reward is the fine memories we have right here at home.  It is also a deep knowledge of our own home and community's ecosystem.    On Monday we saw a sharp shinned hawk (possibly a Coopers) dive into our neighbor's yard and then rise up to a snag in the next yard.   We wondered if it was after their chickens?    We also tracked down why so many dump trucks kept heading past and now know that soon there will be a new home in the neighborhood.  We found more free ranging chickens.  Is that why the hawk circled again yesterday?

We planted raspberry bushes.  We found the first dandelion and also the first crocus of spring in our yard.