Take it Outside

Turn off the screens—the television, the computer, the video games. Take time from work, from chores, from the day to day tasks that keep us busy. Adults and children take it outside. Every couple of weeks I will challenge you to see and hear new things—to hunt the woods for wildflowers, to find shapes in nature, to sit by the waterside and listen for unique sounds. So much to experience out in the world.

• This week’s challenge: Look for signs of wildlife: trees cut by beaver, deer rubbings, squirrel nests and rabbit poop. Animals eat, drink, sleep, and play in the wild. Venture out into a forest, walk beside a pond or through a meadow, think about the animals that might live in that setting and then look for signs. Wildlife signs can be divided into the following categories: 

• Homes: nests, holes, molehills, spider webs, cocoons
• Tracks: paw, feet, and hoof impressions in mud, sand or snow
• Feeding: chew marks, piles of feathers or bones, empty shells, holes in trees, piles of seed pods
• Trails: tunnels in thicket, paths worn in meadow grass,worn or scratched areas on tree trunks and logs
• Sightings or hearings: animals scurrying, birds chirping
• Scat: animals poop in the woods and animal’2s scat looks different

So, open your eyes, your ears and your mind and start hunting. Let us know what you find.

Wildlife Sign Walk

Wild Kids

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Take it Outside

Turn off the screens—the television, the computer, the video games. Take time from work, from chores, from the day to day tasks that keep us busy. Adults and children, take it outside. Each week I will challenge you to see and hear new things—to hunt the woods for wildflowers, to find shapes in nature, to sit by the waterside and listen for unique sounds. So much to experience out in the world.

Look for Large

This week’s challenge: Look in nature for all things large, big, huge, enormous, gigantic. Talk about scale and size. Compare the size of a big tree to an adult and then to a child. Play with the words—what’s the difference between humongous and gigantic? Find big rocks, leaves, mushrooms, sticks, ponds, rivers, hills, etc. and then label them with large words—enormous, big, huge, gargantuan, humongous, jumbo, tremendous, large, massive, gigantic, towering. I always marvel at the bigness of the sky, particularly the bright blue skies of autumn. They always help me gain perspective.

The earth weighs about 13227735730800000000000000 pounds or about 6000000000000000000000000 kilograms. Its diameter is 7,926 miles. The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,901.55 miles or 40,075.16 kilometers. Now that’s tremendous!

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Take it Outside

123 Let’s Go See

Turn off the screens—the television, the computer, the video games. Take time from work, from chores, from the day to day tasks that keep us busy. Adults and children take it outside. Each week I will challenge you to see and hear new things—to hunt the woods for wildflowers, to find shapes in nature, to sit by the waterside and listen for unique sounds. So much to experience out in the world.

1 fern

This week’s challenge: Numbers, can you find them? Look for 5 points on a leaf, 3 leaves on a stem, 1 stick poking out of a pond, 2 mushrooms together on 1 stump. Once you start looking for numbers of things you will see them every where. While I was hiking with my kids I noticed 1 shiny leaf, then I saw 2 giant leaves. Aurora was ahead of me on the trail so I called up to her that I was looking for 3’s. She asked me to explain what I was doing. When I did she was hooked, as were the other children. The other parents even started looking for qualifying items. To make the search more challenging, start with 1 of something and work your way up to 5 or even 10. Here’s what we came up with on an afternoon hike in New Hampshire.

 

mushroom, mushroom, mushroom

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Take it Outside

Turn off the screens—the television, the computer, the video games. Take time from work, from chores, from the day to day tasks that keep us busy. Adults and children take it outside. Each week I will challenge you to see and hear new things—to hunt the woods for wildflowers, to find shapes in nature, to sit by the waterside and listen for unique sounds. So much to experience out in the world.

This week’s challenge: Sit in a vegetable garden. Imagine how the plants grow up toward the sun. Notice the different plants—the shapes and colors of the fruits and vegetables. Look closely who else visits or lives in the garden. I bet you can find lots of creeping, crawling things. What are they eating? Think about the food the garden produces. How do you feel about the idea of growing your own food? What fruits and vegetable did you grown this year? What plants would you like to grow next year? At this time of year the plants in the gardens are coming to the end of their life cycle. Can you tell? What are the clues?

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