Outside Time

This weekend our family spent most of the weekend outside.   We played and puttered about in the backyard for hours and hours and hours.  The fact that the hammock was brought out meant that it was just warm enough in the afternoons to lounge, although mittens were needed in the morning and a cup of tea in midday.  We even had a small fire in our chimenea last night.

I want to make note of just a few of the things that my just four year old boys did as I always find it helpful to see or hear other children doing the same things.

They ran around with the neighbors pretending they were chipmunks and putting each other in a "den".  Then S said, " I 'm going to cook you!"

They played in the hammock "boat"...first with three other friends just giggling and swinging and even singing.  Then falling out and saying "man overboard."  Soon the kids who fell out were octopus trying to wiggle and bump the boat.

The boys made pretend beans and rice and quinoa & pumpkin bread and served it at their hotel ( which was basically a little nook next to the azaelas.)

We watched a crow holding a twig on the wire, drop it and then go and get another.

The boys dug in their mud pits and worked on making bridges with sticks & the neighbor kids (age 3 &  5).

They danced around and taunted the lawn mower, staying a safe distance away while papa mowed.

They helped plant a new garden bed.

They played with sticks and balls and invented a game where the ball had to go through a "chute" which was the legs of an upside down chair.

They played on an upside down wheelbarrow.
Climbed trees.
Fed the neighbors chickens.

On a neighborhood bike ride, they stopped and investigated some new saplings and crosscuts of stumps that had been installed to keep cars from parking on the boulevard.   Then they climbed the stumps. Lifted their bikes on the stumps.  Played for at least 20 minutes.

Toddler Tales and Trails

Being a full time parent is a wonderful way to get to experience programs and find out what they are about.  They truly teach me as well as they teach my children.   Our local Audubon offers a great activity for youngsters and their caregivers, Toddler Tales and Trails.  Usually there is a staff naturalist who leads the program.  However, she has lost her voice and since I am a trained volunteer at the park yesterday I was able to lead.    I focused on spring and also nests.  Here is a brief description of our activities.  One hour was a short amount of time to delve into all the things I had prepared, but it was the perfect amount of time for the kids who were ready for free play at the end of our hike.

Opening activities and traditional songs

Read book called Wake Up It's Spring by Lisa Campbell Ernst which the young children seemed to love.  I think it is because of how expressively the illustrator drew the pictures.  It just seemed to resonate with the youngsters.

Sang Pete Seeger's" Litte Bird Fly Through My Window" Kids each chose a stuffed bird that made a sound.  They play the sound and then we sang to their bird. 

Looked at various nests to discover what they were made out of & then I handed each child a small egg carton with play dough to make a nest.  We  searched for things to line it with as we hiked along.

Then read In my Nest by Sara gillingham and Lorena Siminovich which is just a simple board book about what goes into a nest.

Then it was time to prepare for and head out on  our hike.   We stopped numerous times to listen for birds: To point what direction we were hearing them.  

We said "hello" to our friends in the forest such as the lightening tree and a baby cedar that was recently planted.  

We played games of follow the leader when we came to particularly long stretches of our hike- the leader got to choose an animal to move like & then we all moved like that animal.  

We stomped in mud.  Stopped in mud.  Spent time in mud.  

Sang a goodbye song.

Finally, this lovely hour was a full experience for me; however for my children it was just a warm up for a day of play.  The boys then had time to play in the park, read more stories at the "centers" library. Run through a spring rain.  Then home for time to work on their mud pits, which with so much water were extra inviting.  

Weekend in the Woods: Weekend in the City

This past weekend I was privileged to get to take part in a Coyote Mentoring Experience at the Wilderness Awareness School in Duvall, WA.  The experience was inspiring on many fronts. Mainly,  it was exciting to be with so many people inspired to create a world that values nature and holistic human development.   The teachers were fabulous, experienced and passionate educators.

We learned about their Natural Learning Cycle and practiced many of the core routines that they have found lead to "nature connection" outlined in their book.    While many of the activities and practices were not new to me- it was encouraging to see it so succinctly outlined.   It makes it a wonderful way to be deliberate in planning nature experiences for children.

I come away from the weekend thinking about my intentions.  I have many: to build community, to teach my children ( and hopefully other children and families) to have a deep knowledge of the place they live in and I am now considering how learning survival and wilderness skills can lead to a richer personhood and in time community.

I am not sure where I will go with the new practices that I began while attending the weekend, however I realize they are already informing how I talk to my children.   The last words of one of the instructors when we left the experience was to go home and remember that others have been living lives too, while you were gone: Ask them questions.

So when I came home to my family I really listened, with a refreshed perspective, to what my family had experienced while I was gone.  I was truly happy to hear about their urban adventure with a make-shift carseat carrier  (they needed to haul two!) that they made all so that they could walk a half mile and take a train to the car rental shop so that they could visit friends in another town.   I enjoyed how they explained that they hadn't thought about the challenge of rain as they went, but how it didn't stop them.  I heard that that they had noticed an eagle soaring over our neighborhood as they walked and it reminded them of the time that they had seen an eagle being chased by crows.  They also informed me that there is another rooster somewhere near the train station & that they could hear its crow.  I asked if they had seen neighbors: they told me yes and named them but said that conversation was quite limited as they all were watching the library truck driver unload books from his truck and deliver them to our branch.

My whole family is learning the practice of paying attention: our natural world and our community is not removed from us. It surrounds us.

Generations Walking

I recently posted an article about how in several generations a family started to walk less and less.  My family is reversing that tradition.  Talking with my father now he says that he remembers that his mother would never consider walking a mile.  These days he is walking two miles one way just to pick up my children from preschool.   My twin, just four years old, boys regularly walk two mile round trips and will walk at least part of the way home from preschool.

This ethic doesn't just happen overnight.  It is a way of living.  I remember as a child walking long distances and riding public transit whenever we were on trips.  We didn't want to spend the money on taxis. I learned it was a great way to experience new places, even though we usually walked for longer than my little sister wanted.   By the time I was in high school, I knew that I could get to and from my school (four miles from my houses) a myriad of ways: biking, riding public transit, the school bus, or on a rare occasion a ride in a car.  Now I live in an urban environment where there are many options of transport as well.  We have one car and it mostly sits.   For my family we have been changing the pattern that my dad says came after World War II, when soldiers came back from war and were ready to sit.   But, now three or four generations since then some people have forgotten what it means to walk.   Local groups are gathering together to bring walking back like the Seattle Greenways or Sound Steps for seniors.  However,  it is a slow reversal in trends.  When I recently toured the neighborhood school, the tour guide said that their are some walking school busses on Fridays and that sometimes kids bike on Fridays, but  most of that stops in the winter.  Kids are still not even able to walk to school despite it being so healthy for them.