Reflection on the Movement

My posts often coincide with the developmental stages of my own children so if you have a younger child you may want to read older posts.  However, embedded throughout I have tried to list resources from my own journey as a parent and educator which can pertain to anyone interested in urban nature play and human development.

I began this journey when my boys were two almost three years ago.  At that time there was much less access to outdoor preschools and natural play areas were not as widely discussed.  It now seems like there is a large community conversation about these issues and also the benefits of unstructured play.

Research continues to come out showing how play helps children understand their world in a myriad of ways.  There is even a recent article about how young children can learn calculus through play.   However, my desire to get children outside playing is not to make brilliant children, but to make amazing, lively communities.  I believe that the more children play outside the healthier our communities will become.  I also believe that the roots of environmental awareness come from exposure and that all children should have a right to experience nature.  Finally, I believe that children who have played a lot are much more ready for school.

Great play can happen anywhere without too many resources.  From basic elements that you can have in a backyard or playground to amazing play areas and children's museums which take the work of childhood and curiosity seriously.  I recently was able to take my kids to the Bay Area Children's Museum and although my boys and I spent five hours there I wish I could take them again and again.  I wish every child could experience such a place of play, imagination and creativity.  Just a few elements that made it great:

• It had a huge outdoor play area with different scenes woven throughout a natural environment with hills and trees.  Examples of the scenes include a buried in sand pirate ship, with brooms and shovels and sifters in which kids dug through and looked for treasure.  There was another area that was a boat that the kids could climb upon.  There was a construction site for little children with plenty of diggers and dump trucks for all. 
• The kids were able to hike up a hill and chime a huge bell.  They could stop in a dinosaur nursery or at a grove full of frogs that when played (they were instruments) sounded like a choir.
• Inside rooms there were plenty of pulleys and scenes from real life in the city
• there was also a place to experience building boats

Digging for treasure

Although this museum did things fabulously many of the concepts can be built upon just by encouraging imagination and giving children access to a few tools. Likewise,  it can be enhanced by simple material- fabric, glue, and cardboard boxes.  There is an organization that encourages "pop-up" play that will be touring the US to show how simple this concept happens to be.

Adventure Playgrounds

I have yet to have visited an adventure playground, although there is one at Mercer Island I am hoping to get to this summer with my twin boys and it sounds as though Teacher Tom offers one at the Woodland Park cooperative a play area that is very close to an adventure playground.  In fact I think it was his webpage where I found this link talking about adventure playgrounds.  It sounds like there will soon be a movie about these amazing playspaces.  In the meantime I continue to work on making our own yard have as many "loose parts" as I can.

 It is amazing the creative play that comes from adding elements to the play yard.  From scrap wood that becomes forts, bridges, stir sticks and tools- to  our Christmas Tree which is in the back yard still drying and preparing for its final use in a bonfire but which currently gets a myriad of attention.  For example the other night when we had children over one child just wanted to swing at it with a stick and knock it over.  Then stand it up again.  Yesterday T asked if he could "prune" it and he began cutting off the boughs.  S and I used these to make wreaths around our blueberry bushes.  Then both boys decorated the play house with evergreens and made soups for a party out of the needles.

Here is an article that was recently in the Atlantic about Adventure Playgrounds

Watching Ducks

Taking slow time in nature is always the best. You never know what you might see.  After a class at the Arboretum last week we stayed and explored the areas of Duck Bay and Foster Island.  We do this regularly and the boys notice seasonal changes. They watch ducks and they also see other people interacting and enjoying nature: photographers, dog walkers, friends, and park employees.

In this picture a duck came wandering up close to the boys, moments later it swam away when a person in a beautiful wooden canoe paddled past. The boys were impressed watching the boat go under the bridge.  They watched peacefully.   I wondered whether the scene inspired them to travel or experience the world by boat?  I certainly was inspired!

Great Fun at the Arboretum

I have written before about the great Parent Child classes at the arboretum.  This year is a new teacher, however the program has stayed strong and has been a wonderful experience.   It is a lovely mixture of naturalist led activities around a different topic each week, student centered choices and exploration- all peppered with games that include the children and the parents.

This week we played a wonderful version of freeze tag.  It involved one person being "it" who turned whoever they tagged into a snowflake.  It involved another person being the sun and they ran around unfreezing the others.   Since class I have found the boys playing freeze / unfreeze many times since our most recent class.   It is through play that children develop deeper understanding and questioning.
I am so thankful for our preschool time when play is such a large part of life.    I just hope that this type of teaching and learning can stay a part of life as kids embark on more formal education.

Here is an article on the importance of outdoor play to child development that I recently came across about play and how other countries are trying to work for more outdoor play and naturalized playgrounds in their students lives.

Pine needle wreaths

At least once a month the Beacon Food Forest has a community work party. What was once a barren hillside is being turned into a lively community space: where neighbors and urban farmers are working together to learn and practice permaculture techniques while meeting neighbors and working for food justice and a sustainable food supply.

Yesterday it was once again a busy event with people of all ages in attendance. Although we were not there for long we tucked in some blueberry plants with shore pine needle boughs. We listened to drummers and enjoyed the sunshine.

New Understandings on Importance of Nature

I  regularly read the Children and Nature Network articles for inspiration and research.  I loved reading Richard Louv's books Last Child in the Woods and The Nature Principle.  I also am working on a creating a list at my local library of my favorite books for educators and parents.  However,  relevant to families in the NW  Louv recently wrote for the local Parent Map--from this link you can access many resources on nature preschools and parent child classes that just three years ago were still hard to find.

I feel like we are at a turning point in terms of education and early childhood understanding.  While No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top seemed to push out some of the "slow" experiences of raising children- research is now proving that we need to give children time to play.  It needs to be unstructured, but occasionally guided for social emotional growth.   It most likely will even be muddy!  The Washington State Early Learning Guidelines make it clear that outdoor time is great for development, but we have a ways to go in terms of making sure all children have this access.

Two years ago when I presented at the SOAR conference on the benefits of nature,  local preschool teachers at the conference said that they were often limited by regulations regarding the outdoor experiences they could provide for their kids.   As I investigate the schools in my region trying to find out what kindergarten will look like, I am sometimes concerned that there is so much standards based teaching and academics that it often hard for teachers to make the time for unstructured play and outdoor time.   I hope that we will make the time for all children.   As I reflect on Martin Luther King Jr's life and legacy this weekend with my family and community--I realize that is an equity issue to get all children opportunities for great  play and learning out of doors.

Prior to being the  full-time mother that I am currently;  I was a teacher.   I am confident that the more  unstructured outdoor experiences that children have will lead to greater mathematical, scientific and language arts understanding and success down the line.  The fact that my children play day in and day out at a mud pit in the back yard helps them understand their world today and will help them understand the land and water models that they will do in fourth or fifth grade.  Their explorations are teaching them about the elements, about what living organisms need to survive, and how to work together!   Does your local school have a play place for nature discovery?

I feel lucky that I have been able to immerse my children in the urban outdoors.  I invite neighbors to come by and play with us.  I have hosted a local urban nature play group at the library.  I still feel like many children are missing the access to nature.  Today as I march with the local preschool; I dream that all kids will have the ability to learn in nature.

Urban Birds

Even in the city there can be a plethora of birds.   Our part of town is not pristine nature.  We hear a constant hum of traffic and the echoes of the booms and whirrs of building that is going on in our valley.  We also usually spend mornings identifying the different motors: cars and trucks rumbling and zipping up our street.   Nevertheless, our yard is still a stopping place for so many different birds.

Yesterday the boys and I had long morning of indoor play, but with lots of watching out our windows.
And it is a daily experience that we note what is happening at our feeders and with the various wildlife around our yard.  Usually we talk about the crows, chickadees, juncos and the sparrows because they are our most frequent visitors.  For the month of December we talked about the Towhee that was in our yard-- its habit of staying low, collecting seeds that dropped from the feeder and scurrying back to its hideout in the laurel.  It was so fun to watch with that tail that sticks up & the bright orange.  But, then we were away and there wasn't food for a while.  Our towhee moved on.    But yesterday was mighty exciting out our window:  We saw a downy woodpecker at one of the cherry trees & the feeder and a flicker came to the suet.  We also saw a Bewicks Wren, a hummingbird and some finches.  We heard the Stellar jay kept company in the back yard with the robins.

So far we only have two feeders: one with Hot Pepper infused Suet and the other raw sunflower seeds. But, we have been working on making our yard a good habitat.  We have covering brush, an old Hawthorne trees. a big old holly and then the native plants we have been adding: including a fir tree, Indian plum, snowberry, huckleberry, salad.  We also have many  perennials including summertime flowering plants.  And while we have patchy grass we have lots of rich mulch that makes perfect habitat for slugs and worms as the boys were noting yesterday when we played out in the yard.  We noted that we do need to come up with a water source for these visitor.   We also discussed other plants we could add to make our yard even better.

It was a perfect day to have checked out from the library a fun and silly book about woodpeckers: Peck, Peck, Peck
By Cousins, Lucy