Health Care Providers Making the Nature Connection

Currently I am taking an Early Childhood Educational Leadership Class. I am afraid that most of my free moments are spent reading articles on early childhood and doing research in order to plan my dream of creating an urban nature preschool. It is exciting to see that there is so much concern these days about children and nature. There are excellent resources that explain how many personal and-I believe -community illnesses can be prevented. It is exciting to see health care providers making the connection between lack of time in nature and asthma, myopia, obesity and even the mental health of youngsters. It is also exciting to see that there are ways to change this that will be good for individuals and communities. I am hoping my preschool could be a start, but with attention communities can organize to change the landscape of their communities to be healthier, greener, and beneficial for all.

Translucent leaves shining in the sunlight

Today we went on leaf hike. We made tree trunk vests out of paper bags and later did tree rubbings by holding the paper up to trees and running a crayon over it. We may make the tree vests fancier tomorrow by adding roots (strings) to the bottom of the vest and possibly stick xylem and phloem. In any case I was thrilled to have my kids initiate the hike we took today. For a few minutes before the rush hour sounds came back- loud and jolting- all I could hear was their singing and humming as they played with leaves and meandered along the trail of our local urban forest.

Who likes the rain?

These are just some fun stories for tots and young children. I especially like the multi-cultural science book. Sung with a few songs like "the rain is falling down, splash" and along with the cotton ball over a tray of water cloud activity and you have a great mini-lesson on rain. In the spring I would add April Rain Song by Langston Hughes.
The early childhood naturalist educator I worked with this morning made the lessons even more fun singing a song "if gumdrops fell like raindrops." and then she led a nature hike looking for signs of rain and plants and animals that thrive in the rain such as worms, lichen, and fungi. My favorite part was when she went to a grassy area and asked all the kids to touch it and say what they noticed.

Driftwood exploration

This past week involved many urban nature adventures including one facilitated tot time/hike at a park across town. Once again the child-directed exploration seemed more beneficial to my children's growing understanding and love of the outside world.

Group led activities for tots I think of this as ages 1 1/2-3 1/2 are an art. More and more I am thinking that they should always be hands on/ involve some choice and watching of the children's interests, and free form. Although socialization needs to come, the goal of nature experience should be on nature and not group skills. Also since many tot time activities include parents they should be memory making for both the child and the adult. Things that I think will work the best:

Books set out for lap reading

Activity stations for solo or with parent guidance for exploration

Songs

Listening to Sounds (but only for brief periods of time)

Mystery solving

Kinesthetic

free play/exploration- this may mean that sometimes the beautiful driftwood becomes a "train" according to the tots. However a remarkable amount of nature observation tactile, auditory, and visual occur.

For an example, while my boys played on driftwood yesterday here is a bit of the learning I observed:

Boys hit sticks of different sizes/ shapes on the log, heard different tones.
The boys explored balance as they scrambled along, over, and around the logs.
T was particulary interested in a seagull that flew overhead. He listened to its call. Watched it and then tried to mimic the sound. Then he said " That's a seagull."
They utilized their imaginations as they envisioned their train: needing gas, a new driver, and getting a trailer.
They also had some social emotional skill development when another family stopped by to talk. Their young girl shared her big leaf maple leaves with the boys.

The celebration and wonder of nature was shared with all.

A walk with grandma

Beautiful fall days deserve to be savored. Yesterday the boys, their mom and their grandma went to the local park. The boys chose the activities. First we went to see the ducks at the little beach. We watched them for a good fifteen minutes as they would preen their feathers,rest, eat, and splash into the water! Then the boys were ready for a walk in the woods. We entered by the mysterious stairs behind the play area and went searching for animals or a place for a little house, but what we found was mostly just a beautiful path. The boys enjoyed going up and down the hill. Theo found a big leaf maple that went swoosh in the air as he waved it about. After about a quarter of a mile the path turned paved, we passed a hollow log, and watched cars pass beside us. It was time to return to the play area.

Camping at a State Park

On our recent trip to the eastern side of the mountains. The boys loved to play at our campsite. From the first night's arrival as they moved easily in the dark: walking on logs and circling round the campsite. To morning's light when they kicked up dirt and hauled around pine needles into giant loads on their compost truck.

Then so much fun at the at the lake and later visiting the horses and the ampitheater.

These two and a half year olds are learning about the world through experience and stories. It makes me very glad that our state has a State Park System and our city, great libraries.

As the boys played in the dirt and pine needles I wondered how long this park had existed. Although, I am not sure of this exact park, Lake Wenatchee State Park, a little research says our State Park System will be a 100 years old in 2013. What are we doing to ensure the protection of these amazing resources? What are we doing to get more people- those who have never been here before out in the wilderness so that they can understand the importance of these places?
In the early part of the 20th century there was a lot of investment into creating parks. Now I know that they are struggling to stay operating despite the Great Outdoor Initiative.

It would be a sad day if the little patches of dirt amongst the trees and forests were left to become weed and garbage covered. Nature would return, but what about us?

Getting out of the City

We had planned on leaving at nap time, right after our morning urban adventure and lunch. But, as it goes doing final packing with young ones it took a little time more than we had planned. Who knew that we would have to wait for the compost man to come up the street and that right behind him would be the mail carrier. By then it was almost 3:30 and so as we turned to head east into the mountains we found ourselves caught in egregious traffic.

As we drove slowly along we wondered. Is it worth going through this traffic just to be free of the city? If there had been an easy turn around we probably would have taken it. We were torn: desiring the peace of the mountain air but hating this slow passageway in our car. In our daily lives we do as much as possible to never be in the car and yet here we were in a long line of autos filing slowly down the road.

We broke free of the traffic, but now it was already nearly five. We wondered if we really should show up to our campsite late in the evening. Dark clouds were overhead and it already seemed as if night would fall soon. Besides, as we went through the list of our gear we realized that Shawn's and my raincoats had been left behind and that our tent would probably not keep out water. Was the forecast which said the next few days would be sunny correct or would we only be getting to the campsite and then needing to pack up in the dark to escape rain in our secondhand tent?

This is the challenge of getting out of the city. There are so many things to pull you back to the comfort of home, especially when you have two kids in the back already crying because they have not napped and they are not used to riding in the car.

But, the lure of the mountains won. Their grey darkness had already cast its spell on us and turning around would have been too sad. Since it was a weekday we knew that if things got too desperate we could probably find a cheap hotel. Thankfully, drives in the northwest when the roads are clear of obstacles go quite quickly. We saw beautiful trees, train trestles, and rivers. We told stories and sang a few songs. We arrived over the winding pass in a great heave. Theo got carsick at the entrance to the campground and the sun stayed glimmering through the trees just long enough to find our site.

We had made it from the grasps of urban life and now we were happily in the wild.