Send children outside: Nature is the best training ground for STEM careers - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I get many links from the Children and Nature Network. This one shows that STEM learning/ preparation can happen naturally when we allow students to explore with wonder and creativity outside.

http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2015/08/23/Send-children-outside-Nature-is-the-best-training-ground-for-STEM-careers/stories/201506170016

Hiking with sticks

It has been a while since we have gone on a nice out if the city nature hike. Today we headed to Franklin Falls. It was hot in the city. The woods, river and mountain air felt good.

It is not a long hike, however the boys seemed a bit tired. They complained more than I had ever heard them- saying "we're tired, we're hungry, can we go home now?"

The falls didn't even enchant them until after a hearty lunch in the shade. Then the rocks, pools of water and the waterfall spray rejuvenated them. They were happy all the way down the path: investigating trees. Looking up and down. Wanting to visit the river- which we did.

Sticks were a wonderful aid to their explorations. They poked, they swung, They skipped. They watched them float down the river.

Forest has a Song

Forest has a Song is a book by Amy Ludwig Vanderwater and Illustrated by Robbin Gourley. I checked it out from the library and am excited to explore these simple poems more with my children and my Tiny Tots adventurers.  

The poems are similar to the Joyful Noise:poems for two voices  that I have used by Paul Fleischman in my intermediate grades classrooms. Within each poem are often two perspectives...the a child noticing fall and some leaves, a child and a chickadee, a child and a squirrel. 

These poems might be a nice springboard for writing poems with children. I can also imagine a parent and a child reading them together. 

Some books are a completed work of art .. Others are art that inspires. I think this book may be the latter. 

Rain, Thunder and Happiness!

This week we have finally had rain.  We have all hungered for this water.  We feel full again.  We are happy to know that the trees can drink their fill.  We are happy to note that maybe the grass will grow again.  We are happy to see little rivers of water running from the gutters- reminding me that we should get rain barrels.  But for now: The boys are carrying and collecting water..building dams..and I am content to listen to their voices & hums mingling with rain sounds out the open window. 

Our culture likes to measure things, but it is the subtle things that tell us the most. As Rachel Carson wrote about in Silent Spring sometimes it is the silences (or the sounds) that tell us the most.  Such as passing a classroom with a roomful of engaged and excited students.  My children humming tells me that they are growing and doing just fine.  At age six they know exactly how to dress and prepare for the rain and mud.  Pulling on old clothes, rain jackets and boots.  Ready to stomp and play with bright eyes.  Puttering. They are off!

How have we gotten here: 

TIme.

The open spaces of summertime have allowed the boys to be able to play.

A safe backyard- despite the hourly sounds of sirens. 

Sticks and mud piles.  

No tv til age 6 and now only minimal. 

Books, museums, and blessings.

Parks 

Community

Family

Thank you.

Toddler Tales and Trails August: Moles, Insects, & Spiders

Today’s T&T was on insects, spiders & moles.  It was quite the broad topic, but this once a month class at our local Audubon Environmental Education Center is an introduction to young people and their families to getting out and exploring.   By having such a broad topic it allowed us to think about how insects & worms in the soil also feed the moles underground as well as birds aboveground. 

For a warm-up we made fingerprint insects and spiders with ink pads and colored pencils.  If kids and their adult wanted to make up a story to go with it they could. 

One of my six year old son's had made a model of the activity with me before hand.  He had dictated words to go along with his fingerprint pictures.  Here is his story.  

Once there were three spiders and one ant. 

They found a hole in a house. 

They climbed through it. 

They slept in it.  

And the next morning they woke up.  They got out of the hole and then they ate the food on the ground by the kitchen table. Then 3 more spiders and 2 more ants came with a sandwich. 

The End. 

Books we read were: Itsy Bitsy Spider- A Classic Book Illustrated by Nora Hlib, Be Nice to Spiders by Margaret Bloy Graham and Underground by Denise Fleming.  

Then we headed outside and pretended we were moles. The trails were our tunnels.  My twin boys and I had hid string worms, which we had the kids search for- as well as search for mole holes.  After collecting the worms I encouraged the kids to take them home and make worm trail art with paint or mud and make up stories about their worms. 

We went on a very short hike to a relatively open area in the woods where we played a game where the adults pretended they were birds and the children pretended they were insects.  Kids could choose how to move. Flutter like a butterfly, Squirm like a worm.  If the insect/ creepy crawly froze we said they were safe.

Finally we searched for bugs in the leaf litter.  It was tough finding them as it is very dry. However we found a few & many signs of decomposers such as holes in leaves.