Family Nature Clubs

The Seattle Public Library and Woodland Park Zoo have begun working to promote Family Nature Clubs funded in part by a Thrive by Five Grant.  Recently our family has begun attending a club in the nearby neighborhood of Rainier Beach.  The boys love it!

So far the direction and leadership has been by zoo staff:  Zoo staff have started each session with great stories and activities to gather everyone together and to promote thinking about nature and living things in new ways. Then they have given activity ideas to give a slight direction to our time out in nearby urban nature.   The reason I think it is such a success is the casual gathering of neighbors and families.  The carefully thought out materials that lead to wonder as well as and the time spent in nearby nature.   The children love to explore nature while spending time with the people who care for them.

So far we have attended only two sessions and already the boys are looking in new ways for colors, patterns and texture in nature.   The first week they had a handout of colors that they were to search for in an small-but sweet outdoor space behind the library.  The second week they were given play dough to take outside and make impressions of things they found in nature at a nearby park.   It was a different way of seeing.

Here is a picture of one of the "impressions" on of my boys made in his play dough.

Investigating Rotation

The boys play with their bikes in a myriad of ways. Friday they turned them upside down along with a wheel barrow and a toy truck. At first it seemed that the challenge was just to get the wheels spinning. Next, they discovered if the wheels touched one another you only had to spin one wheel and the second wheel would spin as well. Finally, they made observations about speed and how many rotations different size wheels made in the same amount of time. A playful moment:emergent scientific discovery.
We certainly are relishing the start of spring with lots of unstructured play.

Forts, Structures and Ice Cream Shops

Today the boys and a friend built an The Three Bears Ice Cream Shop using scrap wood, bricks, a piece of fabric and a few other odds and ends found about the yard.  They gathered writing materials and tape for their sign.

Although the structure is not fancy the children felt very proud of their work. It took a bit of guidance to actually get the idea going in a solid direction but as the kids started to explore the idea and manipulate the materials they quickly owned it. They made a freezer of ferns and were looking all around for roofing material which I eventually helped them with by suggesting fabric. In retrospect maybe I should have let them come up with that idea.

They were figuring out how to make ice cream as the day wrapped up and it would have been fun to see what they discovered. Sadly, the players may not all be gathered together tomorrow to continue the idea- but we will see what may transpire.

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.