Play

Visiting the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and Discovering “The Learning Center”

IMAG0258

I’ve been to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum many times since I moved to Minnesota but today was the first time I’ve been to The Learning Center. The play areas reminded me a little bit of the outdoor play areas of Wood Lake Nature Center and the Tamarack Nature Center. As far as young children go, this was probably the best of the three!

IMAG0265

I was amazed and surprised at all I’ve been missing out on! They have beautiful outdoor spaces for toddlers and preschoolers and a garden where summer camp kids grow vegetables.

Inside they were having a special event and activities related to bees. We spent half the day at The Learning Center alone!

Inside the greenhouse. The little butterfly hat was an art project they had set up for the kids to enjoy.

IMAG0291 IMAG0293 IMAG0287

Flowers in the greenhouse.

 IMAG0284 IMAG0286

IMAG0285

The children are spraying the plants in the greenhouse with water bottles provided by the arboretum for visitors to use.

IMAG0279

IMAG0272

In honor of “Bee Day” they had a bee costume for kids to try on.

IMAG0270

Some sort of bird house in one of the four outdoor areas surrounding the Center.

IMAG0269

The first free outdoor lending library and outdoor reading area I’ve ever seen. There was a canopy of crabapple trees and birdfeeders all around. More nature play objects as well.

IMAG0264

Enjoying one of the books on birds and the sheltered reading area.

IMAG0268

IMAG0263

Each outdoor space as items for the children to use and to enjoy. Most of the items for creative play were items found in nature.

I think the children enjoyed this table the most. They painted slices of tree trunks with paintbrushes and water.

IMAG0251

IMAG0250

IMAG0259

IMAG0249

IMAG0252 IMAG0260

An interesting crawl space/fort made of iron stakes and some sort of mesh-like burlap.

IMAG0253

IMAG0254 

This area had a water spout and PVC tubes to build waterways.

IMAG0257

IMAG0261-1

Nature Play as an Everyday Joy of Childhood? For Kids, Frequency Requires Proximity

NATURE PLAY AS AN EVERYDAY JOY OF CHILDHOOD?
 http://childrenandnature.ning.com/group/natureclubsforfamilies/forum/topics/nature-play-as-an-everyday-joy-of-childhood-for-kids-frequency

Most of us who enjoyed nature play in our childhoods realize that it didn’t matter if we had a pristine patch of forest to play in or just a couple of vacant city lots.  Either way, there were endless things to find, explore, capture, imagine, and play with.  But what was important is that these places were right there, within our walking/running/biking distance.  No car, no parent, and no schedule were needed to get outside and play in nature.

The children and nature movement is fostering wonderful new ways for kids to play outdoors, such as designed natural playspaces, family nature clubs, and naturalized schoolyards.  These and other similar efforts are valuable steps – not only for the kids, but for parents who are reconsidering their children’s indoor, nature-deprived lives.  Yet most of these new approaches are challenged in one vital dimension:  frequency

When Dr. Louise Chawla (University of Colorado) researched influential childhood experiences in nature, she found that, “The special places that stood out in memory, where people formed a first bond with the natural world, were always a part of the regular rhythm of life.”  Those powerful experiences didn’t typically come from annual family camping trips, but rather from day-after-day, week-after-week events in children’s lives.  Actually, no special research is needed to realize that frequent childhood activities have more lasting impact than ephemeral ones.  Practicing the violin once a month is not a very effective strategy!  Is it better than nothing?  Perhaps – but only if you set your sights very low.

The same equation applies to nature play.  If we want it to have maximum impact, then it needs to be “part of the regular rhythm of life.”  It seems unlikely that we can achieve this solely through monthly meet-ups or widely scattered playspaces – strategies that require parents, cars and calendars, and thus compete for time within families’ hectic schedules.  Are these approaches valuable?  Absolutely!  Are they sufficient?  Unlikely.

If we really want to power-up nature-based play, it needs to be available where children can enjoy it almost any day, without adult involvement or confining schedules.  For most kids this means either home yards or neighborhood parks – and (sadly) only the former is likely to alleviate the fears of 21st-century American parents.  Can a typical quarter-acre suburban yard actually support nature play?  Or a city lot half that size?  Or an apartment courtyard?  The answer is yes, especially for kids of about two to eight years old.  Younger children’s worlds are much smaller than those of adults.  They don’t need sprawling spaces or eye-popping vistas.  Their attention naturally focuses on tiny and manipulable pleasures:  on dandelions rather than rose gardens; on earthworms rather than herds of bison; on a patch of dirt to dig in rather than a yawning cave to explore.

Unfortunately, the typical American yard is no haven for nature play.  Good nature play requires “rich” settings – that is, a diversity of plants, animals, and landforms that create endless opportunities for discovery and engagement.  Turf grass lawns, solitary shade trees, and a few neatly trimmed shrubs do not meet these criteria.  However, even the sparest yard can be augmented for good nature play with a little thought, a dose of elbow grease, and much less money than what those elaborate backyard play sets cost.

The key is to create yards with a “density of diversity:” a collection of micro-habitats that will harbor lots of natural discoveries and delights throughout the seasons.  These micro-habitats might include a shrub thicket, a wildflower garden, a jumbled pile of boulders, a tiny garden pond, a butterfly garden, a berry patch, a mass of tall native grasses, or even a space allowed to just grow into whatever comes up!  Once you’ve established a few of these tiny worlds in your yard, you can enhance them with a digging pit or a giant dirt pile, a couple of large logs, bird and toad houses, a bench or hammock in a quiet nook, and plenty of “loose parts” to nurture creative and constructive play.  These loose parts can be branches, driftwood, cattails, bamboo poles, boards, tree cookies (log slices), tarps, seed pods, pine cones, large boxes, hay bales, and whatever else you can readily scrounge up.

By focusing your primary efforts on creating multiple micro-habitats, you will ensure authentic nature play:  interactions with real nature, in all of its beauty, wonder, unpredictability, and adventure.  Manufactured outdoor play components – like the plastic play equipment designed to look natural – do not create the same connections to the natural world.  Kids can’t peel the bark off a plastic log to find rollie-pollies, and they won’t find monarch caterpillars feeding on fiberglass leaves.  In fact, one big, over-grown wildflower bed — or a patch of flowering shrubs laced with tiny paths — will bring more lasting and real nature play to your kids than will any human-made product! 

Note, though, that nature playscapes are more “messy” than most home landscaping, so you may want to keep much of your nature play zone in the backyard where it won’t generate hostility from neighbors who think front yards should look like golf greens.  However, certain nature play features are usually “dressy” enough to bring into front yards, like butterfly gardens, boulders, and herb gardens.  And by highlighting street-side nature play, you may encourage other local parents to think more about “kid-scaping” their own yards.  Nature play zones get better and better when more of your neighbors imitate and add to your own efforts!

None of these steps towards home-based nature play require great knowledge, training, or expense.  They can be implemented bit by bit, and your plans can be in constant flux as you discover what your kids and their friends most enjoy.  The ultimate goal is to create enough nature play “critical mass” so that your kids are excited to play in their own yards — day after day, and whenever they wish.  Then nature play will be a regular joy for your children; then it will achieve the frequency needed to influence and benefit them for decades to come! 

A few suggested resources with ideas to support home-based nature play:

– “A Parents’ Guide to Nature Play” from Green Hearts Institute for Nature in Childhood: http://www.greenheartsinc.org/Parents__Guide.html

– National Wildlife Federation’s guidance on creating backyard wildlife habitats:www.nwf.org/Get-Outside/Outdoor-Activities/Garden-for-Wildlife/Crea…

“Nature Play:  Simple and Fun Ideas for All” from Forestry Commission England:

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-7LSEHW

A Child’s Garden:  Enchanting Outdoor Spaces for Children and Parents, by Molly Dannenmaier

Plants for Play:  A Plant Selection Guide for Children’s Outdoor Environments, by Robin Moore

Natural Playscapes:  Creating Outdoor Play Environments for the Soul, by Rusty Keeler

RELATED POSTS:
NOW THIS IS A PLAYGROUND!
BEYOND THE PLAYGROUND
NATURE-BASED CHILDCARE CENTER

Edible Play Dough – Oatmeal Flavor!

Everytime my little girl puts store bought playdough into her mouth, chews it up and swallows, I cringe. Icky!

So I decided to try an edible playdough recipe that I found on Inspiration Laboratories:

Oatmeal Play Dough:

  • 1 cup of oatmeal
  • 1/2 cup of water
  • 1/2 cup of flour

Directions:

Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl.  Knead with your hands and enjoy. If the dough is a little too dry, add a touch more water.  If it’s too wet, add a bit more flour.

Here’s what happened when WE gave it a whirl!

1. First we added the flour into the bowl. She liked to shift her fingers through the flour.

2. Then  I added the water. She wasn’t a fan of the sticky feel of this so grandma helped out.

3. Next came the oatmeal. I didn’t have plain oatmeal so I used packets of Apple Cinnamon and Peaches and Cream. The dough smelled great!

4. For a little bit of fun I brought out the food coloring.

5. This was her favorite part. It was a great hit! She really liked taking the different colors and putting them into the dough.

Her hands reflect the great pleasure derived from the food coloring:

We made birds and squirrels and bird baths and had a whole imaginary garden going on. It was great fun; I would definitely do it again.

Now THIS is a Playground!

Image

One of the techniques of the Waldorf School is to provide open-ended objects to children and to allow the child to freely project meaning onto the object. Toys with concrete meaning already ascribed to them are less favorable because they require less of the child’s diverse imagination.

 This last weekend I went to the Wood Lake Nature Center in Richfield, Minnesota. http://www.woodlakenaturecenter.org/ It is a large green area smack dab in the middle of the city. It’s a Waldorf parent’s dream.

I’d never been to before and I was amazed! It was a dream come true for those who believe that the child’s imagination should come from materials that don’t already have assigned meaning to them. The children use their own creativity and ideas to decide what they want to do with their surrounding and their environment. They are free to let their imagination run wild.

This nature area has a beautiful indoor center where children can see snakes and turtles and salamanders in fish tanks. The center also has plenty of windows for viewing birds eating at the feeders.

But what follows blew my mind! It was the outdoor playspace.

A “back to nature for children” dream come true!

Image

No slides, no structures. Just one big fenced in area with two really big trees. No man-made objects. Just sticks, small logs, trees, rocks, stones, slices of trunks of trees.

The kids were in HEAVEN!

Climbing Trees.

Building Forts.

 Image

Image

Image

Scaling high peaks.

 

     

Or staying close to the ground on rocks just her size.

 

    

The bridge was also a lot of fun.

And when we tired of that, we went for a walk on the paths listening for crickets, frogs and birds.

Into the woods,

 

   

where the ferns were exploding and so were the smiles!

 

Around the marshlands and lakes we went.

It was like a fairy tale. Just gorgeous!

(Our younger companion enjoyed nature from her stroller.)

But later fell asleep!

If you live in Minnesota, check out the Wood Lakes Nature Center. It’s a treat!

RELATED POSTS:

Living “Hands Free” and Technology Free for Your Children
Kids Removed from Nature
Advocating for Your Child to Remain Electronics Free