Top Ten Tuesday- 10 fun childrens books about nature!

Ok so today is rainy day... so bring nature inside, curl up and read a book!  Here are just a few books for kids about nature where they can smile, learn and have a good time still experiencing a little creative nature.

Here is the Top Ten list for today:  Ten Fun Nature Books

Download and enjoy...

Mindful Monday: Excer"size" Your Brain

Last week for Mindful Monday there was an article about how playing outside makes you smarter.  Of course I am probably very biased but I totally believe it is true.  Anyone who has been on field trips with Trust in our Children can attest that even the toughest behavior issues are milder when we are exploring and learning outside.  Kids retain more of the information that we cover, and I am always amazed when a Kindergarten child remembers what erosion is from fall to spring.  But I don’t believe that it is all just nature and experiencing nature.  I know… perish the thought!

A while back I was looking for information to back up our observations on behavior and learning styles of kids in the outdoors.  What I found was this book: If you haven’t read it, you should give it a try.  It talks about the effects of physical exercise on brain function.  It sites Physical Education and the benefits it has on children’s health and learning in schools.

 In a time where we seem to be cutting many programs that aren’t lecture classes, getting rid of outdoor education, lowering the expectations of Physical Education, and at the same time experiencing a growth in child obesity statistics… perhaps we should slow down.  Somewhere in the zeal to make our kids the smartest in the world we threw the baby out with the bathwater.  I was fascinated with this book and the link that it made between physical activity and brain function. 

Anyone who sits at a desk to work for long periods of time can attest to the benefits of getting up and walking around for a bit to get the “juices flowing.”  It turns out that this is a real thing. (Which is lucky, because now my co-worker and I totally justify our power walk lunches!)  Your jaunts to the watercooler weren’t just to hear the gossip, but are quite possibly making you more productive and growing your brain power once you go back to your seat. 

This book sites a study done at a school in Illinois called Zero Hour PE You really should check it out.  A school that did a study that proved getting your heart rate up and moving around, will actually create a better functioning, smarter child. 

So get up, shake it out, run up and down the stairs on your lunch break before your behind takes another long nap in front of the computer… your brain will thank you for it, and quite possibly your boss. 

Now I am wondering when all the schools will catch on… get outside, get moving and get smarter.

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Top Ten Tuesday- 10 Reasons To Get Outside

We all know that there are health benefits to getting moving and getting in touch with nature.  But there is some pretty amazing research going on out there about the great effects of nature on our health.

Perhaps we would do well to remember sometimes going back to where we come from, and I don't mean our birthplace, but back to the basics of nature is one of the healthiest things we can do for ourselves.

So without further dialogue, here are 10 reasons to get outside, and the places that you can read more about the research being done!  Click here to download the PDF

Playing Outside Makes Kids Smarter!

So in my reading last week I cam across this article 10 Ways Playing Outside Makes Kids Smarter.

As I read it I just nodded my head and thought, this is really pretty common knowledge.  But is it?  In the wake of Exams and AP testing for my oldest, I realized... I don't remember the last time that one of her classes went outside.

The obvious response to this is,  high schoolers don't really "play outside" anymore.  Which is very true.  However, in thinking about her classes, I thought...it would be really easy for them to take a class outside, for practical learning or even just a change of scenery. 

Many of our classes that we offer at our high schools should take advantage of the laboratory they have right outside their doors.  Shouldn't an environmental studies class, get out and study, well, the environment?  Can we learn all we need to know from a text book? 

In our zeal to pump up our kids brains and their knowledge base, we have created a system in which they are stuck at their schools and inside and the practical science of learning, has been forgotten. 

The movement that Richard Louv's "Last Child in the Woods" started was a wave of Land Trusts and other organizations creating successful outdoor education opportunities for local children, including us.  The interesting thing, is most of us started with elementary aged kids.

It makes sense, they are the ones who still find wonder in the outdoors.  They love to get dirty and climb trees and quite frankly, don't tend to roll their eyes at you in distain for asking them to walk in the woods...But are we missing a key group?

It is a great start, but I wonder how many schools are doing similar things in their upper level classes?  I was lucky enough to go to a Middle School in NH that was amazing with their outdoor education.  In 5th grade we went to "environemental camp" for a week, in 6th grade we hiked the NH coast and camped on the beach (mind you its only 18 miles long...in Maine you might not finish before HS graduation!)   The 8th grade did a marine biology course where we went before school at low tide and studied tide pools etc, as well as our North Country trip where the entire 8th grade camped for a week up north and all of our classes were held outside.

It clearly had a profound effect on me.  Not only my love for the outdoors, but also my desire to understand the natural world, and my attachment to the place in which I grew up.  I worry now, that all of our desire to create super brains in our upper level kids, are we missing a big part of the learning experience? 

The love of learning to learn, questioning, awe and wonder, problem solving.  Even practical applications of math and science in the natural world, or connecting writing and the arts with what we are surrounded by.   If we depend on classrooms and text books for all of our older kids, are they going to forget how much fun it was to climb a tree, or find an unknown creature in a tide pool.  Are they going to forget to just be, and love this place we all call home.

Maybe if we all look at this list and realize that there is value in all kinds of learning, not just in our classrooms we can all find a way back to our natural curiosity!

Top Ten Tuesday- Top Natives to Plant this Summer!

Here is your newest addition to the top ten lists. 

I don't know about you, but this warm weather has my gardening gloves twitching!  I am ready to get elbow deep in the dirt and start planting something.  Here is a list of Native Plants to Maine, that not only are useful and beautiful, but also are environmentally friendly and helpful for our furry and flight fancy friends.

How many of us have gone for a walk on a trail... oh say The Smith Preserve (a shameless plug for our beautiful properties)  only to find a patch of wild blueberries to provide a little sweetness and sustenance on our journey.  There is no reason that can't be in your front yard!

With a little planning you can have a tasty treat, and beautiful butterflies and birds flocking to your yard while getting back to the basics of Maine's plant ecology.

Here is Top Natives to Plant

Mindful Monday - Any Walk Can be a Nature Walk...

Today is the last day for my intern Willow Gertz, and before she left she found a bunch of articles for me to read about getting kids in nature etc... things I could use for Mindful Mondays.  So in honor of her departure from us and on to her post-collegiate life, I am using one of them.

Many of us fear that we don't know enough about nature to be "nature educators."  I hear it often when I am looking for volunteers to help out with a module.  I think because I was a teacher, I don't worry about all that as much.  I realized that I learned along with my students almost as much as I taught them... and there is nothing wrong with that.  In fact, I believe that it nurtures the life long learning mentality in students that we want them to have. 

For some reason many seem to worry when we are working with the kindergarten, I remind them that they are 5... and though they scare me a lot more than middle schooler's... I am fairly certain the depth to which we cover subjects is not too much for most of us when dealing with the younger ages.

This article:  Turn Any Walk Into a Nature Walk the ideas are great.  If you read this, you are mostly prompting kids to answer their own questions.  Simple observation.

 If we get too caught up in dumping information into their brains we loose sight of simple curiosity and creating the sense of wonder about the natural world in our children.  If it is not their own, they won't own it.

If they walk and observe, their own curiosity will eventually grow large enough that they will seek out their own answers.  In the age of infinite knowledge at our fingertips, we should feel comforted that if we simply encourage them to venture down that path, they will seek and find all the answers to their own questions.

In the mean time, don't be afraid to help out with those young ones.  If worse comes to worse, you can always come up with your own answers.... as a comedian once told, when his daughter asked why the sky was blue, his response to his over inquisitive child was "because if it was green we wouldn't know where to stop mowing our lawns."

Take someone out and turn your walk into a "Nature Walk"  start building that natural sense of wonder and curiosity, they will do the rest, and hey, you might learn something along the way!