Making Leaf Rubbings and Leaf Art

Leaf Rubbings
Although this project sounds easy, it can take kids a bit of practice to get clear details. Don’t give up after one or two attempts.

Go outside and collect some leaves. When possible, use leaves that have fallen on the ground. If that doesn’t give you a good variety, carefully pull leaves from trees and shrubs. Try to limit yourself to one leaf from a plant; remember, plants use their leaves to make their own food. Now, bring the leaves inside or work somewhere outdoors where your materials won’t blow around.

Set one leaf on a table, vein side (bumpy side) facing up; cover the leaf with a piece of paper. Hold the paper in place with one hand. Now, take a crayon and hold it sideways so you can rub the length of the crayon over the section of the paper covering the leaf. The crayon should reveal the shape and texture of the leaf on the paper.

If you can’t see the details of the leaf, press down harder with the crayon. If the outline and veins are doubled or fuzzy it probably means that you shifted the paper while rubbing the crayon over it. Sometimes it takes two, three, or even six tries to get a really nice looking leaf rubbing. The leaves shouldn’t get harmed by the process, so you can practice as much as you need.

What to Do with Leaf Rubbings
• Cut out the leaves and layer them into a collage. Use small pieces of double-sided foam tape behind a few of the leaves to add some depth to the collage.
• Cut out a leaf and write a poem on the back of the leaf. Punch a hole in the leaf and add a piece of string or yarn so the leaves can be hung.
• Mount the leaf rubbing on a piece of cardstock and cut out the shape. Glue a magnet on the back and attach to the refrigerator or another magnetic surface.
• Try doing a leaf rubbing on a colored piece of paper with a contrasting color crayon for variety.
• Cut out the leaves and layer them around the edges of an inexpensive picture frame.
• Create a matching game. Do two leaf rubbings of each shape leaf. Cut out the leaves and glue them onto two index cards. Try to make a set of at least twelve cards with six matches. Shuffle the cards and set them picture-side down on the table or floor. Players take turns flipping over two cards looking for a match. The player with the most matches wins that round.

Resist Paintings
Add another level of interest to texture rubbings by painting over the page.
Do crayon texture rubbings of leaves, bark, or manmade objects. Cover a lot of the paper with texture rubbings, but avoid having the different shapes overlap. It is okay if just a corner of a leaf is on the page. Now, go over the entire page with watercolor paints. You can use one color of paint or use several colors, painting splotches of color here and there. The wax crayon will resist the watercolor paint while the paint adheres to the paper. Paint over the entire piece of paper.

Another way of doing a resist painting is to draw a simple line picture with crayons (because the pencil marks could show through the crayon, you’ll have to draw with the crayons). Then paint over the entire picture with watercolors. To show off the resist, you will have to carry the paint over the lines. Otherwise, you’ll look like you are painting a coloring book page. Have fun with showing off the resist effect.

For a third option, draw with crayon a picture of your backyard or a place in nature that you love. Don’t color the sky, but you can add a few wispy clouds with white crayon. Paint over the entire scene with a mixture of blue, violet and black to make the scene a night scene.

Texture rubbings are a great way to reveal the details of leaves that you and your kids might not otherwise notice. This isn't just an autumn leaf project - you can do this during any season you can gather leaves.

Make Leaf Silhouette Artwork

Create a sort of reverse print by capturing the negative space, or the area around the leaf.

Even if you don’t live in area where you get to collect autumn-bright leaves, there are still plenty of art projects that feature leaves. Here’s one to get you started. You want to go out and gather leaves with a variety of shapes.

There are several ways to show off the silhouette, or outline, of a leaf. Set a leaf on a piece of paper and hold it in place with one hand. Then try one of these following techniques,

• Dip a paintbrush in watercolors, poster paints, or tempera paints. Starting on the leaf, paint over the edge of the leaf onto the paper, extending the brush strokes as far as desired.
• Dip a cut sponge in paint and dab the sponge along the outline of the leaf.
• Dip an old toothbrush in paint. Then run the handle of a paintbrush along the bristles of the toothbrush. The paint will spatter and fall around the outline of the brush. (You won’t hold the leaf in place with your hand for this variation.)
• Cover the leaf with a piece of cheesecloth or burlap that is larger than the leaf. With a sponge dipped in paint, dab the sponge over the fabric. Avoid using too much paint or rubbing the sponge over the fabric. With this technique, the textured pattern from the fabric will get added to the silhouette surrounding the leaf shape.
• Do several leaf silhouettes over a sheet of paper. Allow some of the paint surrounding the shapes to overlap, creating different colors.
• After the paint dries, go back and paint the white space with a brush in a complementary color.

After painting around the edge of the leaf, carefully remove the leaf. The shape of the leaf will be white, with paint surrounding where the leaf was held. Decorate around the silhouette as desired, including adding more silhouette images to the page.

Clean Quest - Get Rid of Litter

Part game, part good deed, this activity reminds children to think twice before tossing trash.

Materials: a pair of non-latex gloves and a trash bag for each participant, one pair of tongs or trash grippers, optional prizes

Do you and your children walk along a road or trail where people carelessly toss their trash? Does this diminish your experience of this location? Talk to your children about going to this location to pick up trash. Outfit each person with non-latex gloves and trash bags. The person to fill a bag with the most trash receives a small reward costing under a dollar (a tumbled gemstone, a small plastic animal, or a pencil).

Remind children to avoid picking up sharp objects or broken glass. You may want to have a pair of tongs to safely pick up these items. To keep energy levels high, set a time limit (if the kids want to keep going, that’s fine; however, if you end the activity while they are still enthusiastic then they will likelier be willing to do this again).

You may want to take a picture of everyone with their bags of trash and ask the site you helped clean to post the picture. Your actions may even remind people to not litter.

This teaches children about stewardship, caring for the environment. It is also a reminder that sometimes an individual must act instead of waiting for others to meet a task.

Outdoor Autumn Games for Parents and Kids

Acorn Toss

This is a bit like Bocce with acorns. Of course, if you can’t find acorns, you can use small pebbles. This is a game of control; not wild tossing movements.

Materials: Acorns, pinecones, sticks, marking pens

You can play this game between you and one child; two children can play opposite one another. If you have a group of kids with you, then divide players into pairs or two teams with two players each. As you are walking you can collect game markers. For fairness, opposing teams should use similar game pieces (acorns or pebbles) and color a dot on their team’s pieces with a marker.

You will need to find a playing area that is clear of shrubs, trees, and small plants for a distance at least as long as three times the tallest child’s height. Use sticks to mark a starting point, where players will stand. One player (or the adult) tosses a pinecone or another object onto the ground. The other players then try to toss their marker as close to that pinecone as they can. Each team gets four tries with four acorns. The player or team that gets closest wins.

Target Practice

Help kids develop hand-eye coordination while focusing their urge to randomly pick up and toss small objects.

Materials: Acorns, pebbles, pine cones, and sticks gathered on the walk.

Some kids just want to pick up and throw things. Sometimes they don’t grasp the implications of their actions and it can become tiresome to continuously say, “Sticks and rocks stay on the ground,” (because you’re opening yourself to all those acorn and pinecone loopholes).

Like Acorn Toss, this game directs kids’ energy. Make it clear, “If I don’t have to tell anyone to keep the things on the ground on the ground, then for 90 seconds you can play a game that involves tossing acorns.” I’ve found this technique works with kids I’ve just met on a field trip and they will monitor one another so to reach the promised activity near the end of the walk.

Look for a clear area where kids can throw things without endangering things or other people. Gather some acorns and pinecones in a large pile so players don’t go wandering around during the activity or feel frustrated that they are losing out on game time by collecting game pieces.

For one game, place a stick to indicate where kids should stand. Then kids take turns trying to toss their acorn further than other players. Another option is to try to land their acorn as close as possible to another player’s game piece.

For another version, construct different sized and shaped boxes with the sticks and set them at different distances from the starting point. Toss the acorns in these targets

Feelings & Nature - Connecting to Emotions through Poetry

In this quiet activity, children connect to their feelings by assigning human emotions to the different things they see around them. Children learn to describe emotions in this brief, poetic exercise.

Preparation: You will need a stack of 3” x 5” index cards. On the cards, draw simple faces exhibiting different emotions. Go online and look for emoticons if you want some ideas. Draw the face and write the emotion underneath. You’ll want to start with a deck of at least twenty emotion cards. If you are doing this activity with a large group, plan on at least two cards for each child. During the play of the game, different children can use the same card.

Hand each child one of the cards. If the child can’t read the word, ask them what emotion they think the face is showing. Explain that their goal is to look around and find something that represents the emotion on their card. If children are confused, ask them to imagine life as a rock. Would the rock feel happy, sad, or bored?

If you have a group, you can warm up to this activity by asking them to imagine if different objects had emotions what feelings they would have? In poetry, the pathetic fallacy is the practice of attaching human emotions to nature, animals, and inanimate objects. You may decide to give this brief literary lesson to preteens or teens. With younger children, this activity can lead to a discussion of how things that aren’t alive don’t have feelings.

With a small group, when a child finds an object that represents the emotion on his card, the child can call the group to stop, point out the object and then allow the others 10-to-20 seconds to guess the emotion.

Option: With a large group, you could create a list poem, in which children connect the emotion to an object they saw on the walk. This poem also uses similes, or comparisons.

For example,
As stubborn as a rock
As bored as a fence
As flexible as a twig
As calm as a leaf

Play Animal Detectives

Even if you don’t see animals on your walk, kids can look for clues to show them what critters have been on the path before you got there.

If you are walking in nature, it can be frustrating and disappointing for children (and adults) to not see any animals roaming about the woods. Of course, I should clarify that statement by saying that we might not notice animals as opposed to saying that we might not see animals on our walk.

One, many people don’t count birds and insects as animals. They move too fast, they don’t travel in straight lines, and oftentimes we hear them but we don’t get a good look at them. Two, many animals are active between dusk and dawn when the lighting allows for them to be seen. Noon is when the day is brightest and hottest. However, you can still look for signs of the animals that have recently moved through the area you are walking at the moment.

Although we call them ‘signs’ they are anything but as obvious as the signs that people make. Animal signs can include holes in the ground and in trees, droppings, tracks, nests, chewed twigs, bent twigs, and scratched up areas of ground or leaves. You don’t need to identify the sources of these signs of animal activity but it can be fun to guess. Avoid spending a lot of time analyzing the source of each sign, as children will tire of the activity. For older children who desire some competition, award one point to the first person to notice each sign.

If children really want to learn what animals are moving around in nature, look for a tracking field guide that shows more than footprint patterns.

Autumn Leaf Hunt

If you are in an area with fall color, this scavenger hunt works with kids’ inclination to gather as many autumn leaves as they can. This activity focuses their hunting and gathering.

While walking, encourage children to gather one leaf from as many different types of trees as they can. It isn’t necessary to identify the species of tree, unless you’d like to do this. Persuade the kids to notice the basic shape of each leaf as opposed to the color or size. This limitation means that every so often the kids have to compare the leaves they’ve collected and decide which oak or ash leaf they are most attracted to.

If you are in a forested area or a place with a variety of leaves, you can give kids a time limit, say sixty seconds, and push them to collect as many leaves as they can. Then allow the kids to sort the leaves by type. Did any child collect a leaf unlike anyone else’s leaves?

Twisted Learning Game about Nature

This variation on Twister helps kids review a lesson in nature identification. Whether you are playing with campers, scouts, students, or your own children and their friends, kids will be learning about nature while having fun.

The preparation for this game can take a while. Have kids make the game. If you have a classroom full of kids, divide the kids into teams of four or five. Assign each team different nature images. The entire class can focus on leaves or birds or each team can gear their game for a different aspect of nature. This way the class can create several games, allowing kids to rotate to different game stations, adding to the learning challenge.

Materials and Preparations: Start by making a game board with a rectangular vinyl tablecloth or flat bed sheet. With permanent marker, fabric marker, or acrylic paint, divide the cloth into sixteen equal blocks (four rows by four columns). Next, select four images (the tracks of four different animals, leaves for four different types of trees, four different types of birds, etc) and draw them in four different boxes scattered over the game board.

Next, you’ll need to make a spinner. Take a square of cardboard and draw a circle on the board. Divide the circle into eight sections. In each section, repeat the four images from the game board. Also, label each image as hand or foot (each image will be on the spinner twice, once for the hand and the other for feet). Poke a hole in the center of the circle and attach a cardboard arrow with a paper fastener so the arrow spins with a flick of the finger.

To play, one player takes on the role as spinner, the person who spins the spinner. This will indicate to another player where to hold their hand or foot. Players maintain this position as the spinner spins again. Rotate through the players and then start back with the first player. Continue the game until one child falls. Switch players so the person who was in charge of the spinner can play the game.

Experience the Outdoors, Don’t Just Read about It - Part Two

I’m not opposed to learning about nature from books. When I taught my first class about reptiles I went to the library and acquired a dozen books and then I went to the bookstore and bought a few more. There is a lot of general information about groups of animals that you can learn in books. I am particularly fond of learning about a topic by gathering information from children’s books – I mean here is the basic stuff you want to learn about a topic in a palatable format. Once I have an understanding of the topic, then I branch out to the adult books.

But, as I was talking about in yesterday’s blog, if you get too stuck in learning everything from books you kind of miss the point of learning about the topic. Studying, or reading, about nature in books can give you a basis of understanding what you are looking at. If you are in New England, you know the information that you read about rainforests or the Arctic doesn’t apply to the ecosystem you are in – no matter how rainy or snowy it is in the Northeast.

For kids (and adults) who memorize facts in books but never lift their head to look out a window or never take an exploratory walk in nature, they miss a big connection. You can read about a gray squirrel’s or blue jay’s behavior, but unless you experience it, the facts are flat. When you look at the way insects chew up the leaves of certain plants, the fact has more import when you look and feel those leaves.

I can read about carpenter ant nesting behaviors, but the day a tree snapped and I could watch the ants hurrying to bring the eggs and larvae to a new safe place made the facts real.

Watching a frog at a pond for 15 or 20 minutes is a different experience than diving in and grabbing it and shoving it in a critter keeper for a quarter-hour observation. I once had a group of art students draw a picture of a frog that we found in a swamp. The frog remained in the water with just its head poking out. The kids were amazed that it didn’t move. I could then bring out the book-facts – frogs don’t hop around looking for food because it would be a waste of energy.

Facts from books are important, just don’t forget to go outside and see those facts in action.

Experience the Outdoors, Don’t Just Read about It - Part One

School starts and kids get new textbooks. They sit in the classroom on the first day and look at the neat piles of books, gathering clues as to what they will be learning about during the school year. Chances are they will make regular trips to the school library, each week to get a new book. The ‘readers’ probably didn’t get to read as many books as they would have liked over the summer (“We just went to the library a few days ago; you’ll just have to wait until I have time to take you back,” says mom/dad/babysitter.) These kids will be ecstatic to roam the shelves at school. For the kids who dread reading and do so because it is an assigned chore, the weekly library visits hold less appeal.

Some of these kids, both the kids with lots of enthusiasm as well as those who are less so, pick up books about nature. Sometimes it’s a kid who loves to read everything, but more likely it is a kid who reads into a single subject and becomes an ‘expert.’ Who wouldn’t love reading about nature? The books have lots of pictures and you learn facts that are guaranteed to gross out a few adults at the dinner table.

My problem with these books is that kids tend not to pay attention to some important facts, such as where an animal is from. I’ve had third graders on field trips ask if the sanctuary they are visiting – in New England – has black mamba snakes, jaguars, primates, and a whole host of other animals. At first, I thought kids were joking, I mean, when was the last time they saw a spider monkey hanging from the backyard bird feeder?

But, no, because they had read about these animals and how they lived in wild places and our 2000-acre suburban sanctuary seems wild to the kids, so, well, we must have Wild Animals. I remember one ten year old boy that adored snakes and was a fount of information about snakes. He would recite facts about snakes (to the point that he annoyed and bored his classmates) in a superior fashion – that I didn’t know about all of these snakes he saw as a down falling in both my intelligence and training.

However, he would run off into the shrub and come back saying that he just saw snake X – a snake that could not live in New England. At one point I saw the common garter snake he was chasing after, but he identified it as something more exotic. His classmates looked at me with some anxiety as I explained the identity of the snake; all while their fellow student argued.

I named the snakes that lived in Massachusetts and told this boy that those were the animals that he could choose from when trying to determine which animal he saw. Oh, but he had read about these other snakes and he knew I must be wrong …. (continued)

Getting Ready for Fall

I know, autumn is a couple of weeks away, but Back-to-School sales and Halloween candy filling a corner of the grocery store has me focusing on this seasonal transition. Go for a walk with your kids (you might be able to do this in your backyard) and look for ten signs that the season is changing. You’ll find the single red leaf, the yellowing grass, and the birds gathering in flocks as they prepare for their southward journey.

Although it is too early to start hunting for favorite fallen leaves, kids can start going through the backyard gathering the toys strewn about from the summer. Box up one summer toy each day, a small ritual acknowledging the quick trip toward autumn. Make summer special with things devoted to that season. And, make autumn special by bringing in things for this season – you and your children can think of what those things can be (bringing the sweaters down from the attic, putting an apple picking trip on the calendar, etc).

Fall into Beginning

Fall is a time to wrap things up. Woodchucks snatch the last mouthfuls of green grass before heading into hibernation. Squirrels and chipmunks continue their wild run to store food for colder weather. Gardeners and farmers start thinking of final harvests.

Yet while some things are winding down, autumn is also a season for starting things. Kids start a new grade. No matter what month their birthdays, fall is like another birthday; instead of announcing a new age, they get to announce their new grade. September or October is also Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Unlike the secular New Year, there are no drinking binges and party hats. However, there is some introspection – what mistakes have been made in the past year and what changes will be incorporated into the New Year?

Even if you aren’t Jewish, you can use the changes of the season, not to mention the start of the school year, as an opportunity to plan some ‘fall cleaning.’ You can connect this contemplation to the environment – Is the lunchbox filled with plastic bags that get tossed each night? How could you change that? Maybe you don’t spend much time outside; consider how you and your children can get outdoors more often.

This doesn’t have to be a parent-directed edict, one more thing that you tell your children they can change. Instead talk together about what you observe in nature and consider how you can incorporate change into your lives. Unlike the January 1st resolution, try to make a promise to include something in your life instead of merely trying to eliminate things and make this a more positive experience.

Do You Close Your Eyes in Nature?

It is all too easy while walking to get caught up in one’s thoughts or in a conversation with whomever you are walking with. If you’ve ever had that heart-leaping feeling when you suddenly become aware of your surroundings but can’t remember how you got there then you know what I mean. This isn’t something that only adults do.

I remember one time at work allowing a group of homeschoolers to lead a walk. I didn’t tell them that they were leading the walk. I didn’t really plan this; we were walking and exploring, so it didn’t really matter where we went. They stopped at the edge of the nature center’s front yard and looked both ways before crossing the street. Some of the kids who were walking next to me asked, “Is that the direction we’re going?” I said, “It is now.”

I was the sole adult with ten or so kids, many who’d taken my science and nature classes for a year or two. We ended up dividing into two groups. The group to the front was deep in a conversation. Although they acknowledged diverging paths by stopping, someone in that group would inevitably select the route to take, glance back to see that I and the rest of the group was following and continue ahead.

Of course, the kids walking with me thought that this was hilarious. Although the kids in the lead were familiar with the trails, it was winter and the few inches of snow on the ground had obliterated this less traveled path. At one point, I commented to the group close to me that we were no longer on the trail. They were, of course, a bit concerned that we were lost; but, I knew that we were between two parallel trails and would come upon one of them soon.

The group near me started wondering when the chatting students in the forward group would notice that we were no longer on a trail. The fact that they had been walking for 30 minutes without a destination hadn’t bothered them, but wouldn’t the lack of a trail.

Twenty minutes later, the lead group stopped. We were just 20 or 25 feet behind them so we caught up in a few steps. One student proclaimed, “I think we’re lost. Where are we going by the way?” The kids walking with me broke up laughing. Within five minutes we found the trail. The walk was a bit longer than ‘planned’ but it taught an interesting lesson.

Know where you are going. Whether you are walking in a city or a suburban neighborhood, you’ll get directions so you can go from one place to the next. The number of people who head out without a map into a forest is astounding. When they call on their cell phone they are usually left fumbling as they try to describe their location and get directions back to the parking lot.

So, a couple of things when you set out on a walk, one, know where you are going – will you encounter steep hills, uneven footing, seasonal flooding? Two, pay attention to your surroundings. Don’t get so caught up in thoughts or conversations that you miss trail or street signs.

Glance around and see where you are. Get kids in the habit of stopping and playing observation games. They aren’t just to slow the pace but to train kids (and adults) to notice where they are. At one level, your walks will be safer. On another level, they will be more enjoyable as you notice where you are.

Restoring One’s Spirit in Nature

Okay, I’m a big proponent for getting kids outside. I don’t have children but I’ve worked in environmental education for 14 years. This summer has been about my father being diagnosed with dementia with Lewy bodies, dealing with hospital – nursing home – assisted living, cleaning out his house, testing/pre op/surgery/post op for his cataract surgery, and more paperwork than I could ever imagine. Every phone call that should complete a task only adds another task (or two or three).

The summer months I longed to arrive for early morning or early evening walks have fallen to the wayside in ‘favor’ of doctors’ appointments and picking through the remnants of my parents’, two hoarders, lives. My meager teaching schedule has involved indoor presentations to toddlers and preschoolers in day care centers. And, although I say that parents should make time for their kids to spend at least 10-15 minutes outdoors, no matter how busy the schedule, I am sad to say that I couldn’t take that advice for myself.

Two days this week I’ve tried to get myself back into the habit of walking at the cemetery, ‘memorial park’ that I favor. I check out the trees and branches downed by Hurricane Irene while my mind runs through to do lists and ‘I don’t wanna’ lists. I smell the fresh cut red oak and listen to the crows complain about my presence as they fly from tree-to-tree following me.

Nature reminds me that everything changes – sometimes in small steps, as with daily adjustments from one season to the next; and other times in great leaps, as with the hurricane. Everything transforms. My father is not the same person he was at the start of the summer and neither am I. My walks in nature have reminded me of this.

Keep a Nature Notebook

With school supplies hitting the stores, often at lower prices than you’ll find the rest of the year, consider purchasing an extra notebook or two for nature notes.

A nature notebook can be as detailed or as simple as desired. The age of the child, their writing skills, and their overall schedule are factors that determine how much time the child can give to a nature journal. But, why keep a nature journal? It makes you more aware of nature – if kids know that they’ll be writing or drawing something that they saw during the day, they will make a point of paying attention during the day to things that they can include in the notebook.

Keep the notebook beside the child’s bed along with a pencil, pen, or favorite drawing supplies. Use the five or ten minutes before lights out to encouraging your child to list one-to-five things they observed in nature that day, draw a picture of something they saw, or write a story about what they saw. This calming activity can become a habit the child looks forward to after just a few days of practice.

Write the day, date, and year at the top of the page, everyday.

Make each day’s entry on a new piece of paper. If the child writes small, then they can use a page to hold a few entries, just be certain to start each entry with the date.

If desired, include information about the weather, what the child did during the day, etc. that sets the stage for the observations.

Use words or images or both to describe something the child observed in nature. Younger children can get an adult’s assistance while older children can fill the page on their own.

Keeping a nature journal encourages observation, writing and spelling skills, and a connection to nature with an awareness of the seasons.

Make Homemade Ice Cream in a Bag

Okay, this isn’t really a nature activity, but it does involve a bit of science. Also, the supplies are simple; no ice cream machine is necessary, making this a somewhat portable activity. Kids and adults can make an individual serving of ice cream wherever they are. Bring along the few supplies and you can make ice cream after the kids participate in a summer sport, during an afternoon at summer camp, in the backyard, at the park, while camping, etc.

For each serving you will need
6 tablespoons of rock salt
Ice
One-gallon sealable plastic bag
One sandwich or quart-size sealable plastic bag
1 tablespoon of sugar
¼ teaspoon vanilla
½ cup of milk
Spoon
For preteens and adults who’d prefer a bigger scoop of ice cream, you can double the recipe.

Add the rock salt to the gallon-size plastic bag. Fill halfway with ice.
Place the other ingredients in the smaller bag and seal.
Set the small bag inside the large bag.
Close the large bag and shake for approximately five minutes.
Eat the ice cream.

This is particularly fun to do when it is hot outside because shaking the bag of ice is very cooling. If you suspect that the kids with you will try tossing the bag, remind them that if they are too rough they could cause the milk to leak into the salt and ice and then they won’t have ice cream to eat.

And for the science piece … salt lowers the freezing point of water. When you are making ice cream, you need temperatures lower than 32 degrees Fahrenheit, which the salt helps create.

15 Minutes Outside

Whether you are at home or on vacation today, go for a walk with your child. It doesn’t have to be a lengthy walk – 15 minutes will do; and you don’t have to go anywhere ‘special’ for this walk. One of the goals of the walk is to remind yourself and your children that nature isn’t ‘out there’ – some place that takes effort to get to, a place that by some definition is ‘nature.’

Today, walk around the neighborhood and name ten wild things that you and your children can see, hear, feel, or smell. Yep, even if you are taking a 15 minute walk, notice ten things in nature – a crow flies overhead, the rough bark of the tree along the side of the road, crickets chirping, the smell of fresh cut grass, etc.

The time limit, layered onto the simple observation activity, forces you and your children to pay attention to your surroundings. Even if you were going for an hour-long walk, you wouldn’t be able to keep up the intensity of observation. Instead, you’d drift into conversations about schedules and other activities that you’ve done or will do.

After fifteen minutes, you’ll return home full of your experience in nature. Although there may be more trees in the forest, your children will have felt the bark, noticed the shape of the leaves, and seen the birds perching on the branches of the trees you walked past. Nature is everywhere.

Make a Bucket List for Nature

Transform the idea of writing a bucket list, a list of the things you want to do before you die, to a kid-friendly, nature-inspired task. Whether your children are preschoolers or preteens, you can encourage your children to create a list of things they would like to experience in nature. For preschoolers, you may ask them what nature activities they would be interested in doing that day or that week. Older children and preteens, who have a better sense of the passage of time, could make lists of what they want to do during a particular season, the upcoming year, or
before they graduate from high school.

This activity can give you ideas for things to do with your child. You’ll also get a better sense of their interests. If your ten-year-old gets bored on walks and yet lists activities such as rock climbing, camping, and kayaking on his bucket list, you know you have a child who enjoys the outdoors – as long as the time includes active, challenging pursuits.

Encourage your child to list specific places they want to go to. This will create an opportunity to learn more about your child and discover what draws them to these locations. If your child is drawn to waterfalls are there some (even small waterfalls) within driving distance? Make your own list and share it with your child. Together you can plan places to go and activities to try. This may guide you toward sending your child to an active camp where they can sample all sorts of recreational pursuits. Or, you may realize that your child is happiest taking photographs of the backyard and neighborhood.

Although you may not be able to help your child do the things on their bucket list in the time frame they would like, by having them state the things they are interested in, you will both become more aware of opportunities to help them meet those goals.

Explore the Backyard

You and your kids will need a backyard for this activity. Even if you live in an apartment, chances are there is some small patch of trees and/or shrubs and maybe even a bit of grass. Don’t discount that patch of greenery.

Oftentimes, we overlook the things closest to us, and that includes nature. Granted a patch of grass shaded by a tree isn’t the same as local conservation land with paths leading you through acres of forests, fields, or wetlands, but you can still explore.

• Give kids a magnifying glass for getting an up close view of insects, seeds, soil, leaves, flower parts, etc.
• A collection jar with holes doesn’t cost a lot of money (check dollar stores) and gives kids the chance to hold onto insects, worms, and small frogs for a short period, giving them the opportunity to examine the creature. Keep the creatures out of direct sun and release them after ten-or-fifteen minutes.
• A white pillow case or piece of fabric will allow kids to set their discoveries – including crawling insects – on the ground while providing maximum contrast.
• Paper and crayons, markers, or watercolors encourages children to take a closer look at their discoveries as they create a journal entry or create a picture.
• A digital camera also encourages exploration, particularly if you challenge a child to take a certain number of photographs of their surroundings.
• With kids ages 8-or-9 and up, you might want to supply some “First” field guides that can help the children to identify the trees, flowers, or insects around them. Trying to identify aspects of nature is something like solving a mystery – can the children notice enough clues that will lead them to the correct conclusion.

Don’t worry if kids don’t stay “on task” by accomplishing some specific exploration. Get them outside with a hook, “Can we find any caterpillars in the garden?” and then watch them discover the things that most interest them.

Enjoy Summer While It's Still Here

The commercials for back-to-school clothing and supplies have already been playing on television for a couple of weeks. It seems too soon, but schedules will only get busier with school and extracurricular activities on the horizon. Create some memorable outdoor experiences with your kids.

• Have the kids eat breakfast outside. Outside can be the front stoop, a porch, a patch of grass beneath a tree. Breakfast can be simple – muffins and juice, Canadian bacon between a couple of waffles. Bring a thermos of coffee for yourself.
• Take a walk around the neighborhood … when it is raining.
• Collect leaves or flowers and press them between the pages of a dictionary.
• Go to a farmer’s market. Give each child one dollar to make a purchase of something for dinner.
• Count the number of birds that visits your feeder over five or ten minutes.
• Have a picnic lunch or supper in the backyard, at the park, at the beach, at the local forest.
• Read a bedtime story outside by flashlight as the day’s light fades.
• Lie on blankets and watch the stars come out.

Outdoor time doesn’t have to involve elaborate experiences but simple moments when everyone is present in the activity.

Nature Play Along the Way for All Ages

In 1997 I entered the field of environmental education as a field trip leader for a 2000-acre suburban wildlife sanctuary. As I sat through the training, I realized that third graders knew more about the natural world than I did. As a kid I rode my bike up and down the street for endless hours. As a preteen, I walked with a friend around the field that was her backyard. Aside from worrying that snakes were going to bite me, I didn’t give much thought about nature.

As an adult though, a new world opened up as I joined nature walks and learned the names of small green plants and shrubs and trees. I learned about the secret worlds of amphibians and arthropods, birds and mammals. The more I read and the more I learned in informal classes and workshops, the more things made sense. Instead of facts, nature was a story. People and plants and animals and even rocks were interconnected.

Teaching classes helped me to process what I learned. However, working with kids isn’t just about conveying facts. It is about getting them to interact with nature. So, as I became involved in the day camp at the wildlife sanctuary I started reading books describing activities adults could guide kids through outdoors.

I collected hundreds of activities and variations on those activities. I kept meaning to turn them into a book, but the format was never clear – should I gear the book for kids, for parents, for teachers … who? Every time I sat down, I tweaked the format and my notes became more and more disorganized. During that time, my mother required more help and then spent years going in and out of hospitals and nursing homes until she died; my work schedule changed and then changed again (and then changed again); I moved three times in three years after previously living at one address for years and years; I met a man, fell in love, and married him; I changed my career from teacher to writer; I helped my father get by living on his own until he had to move into assisted living, which hasn’t yet made things easier because now I’m cleaning the house – and my parents never got rid of anything (even empty boxes).

Before the end of September, my Nature Play Along the Way series will be e-published and available through BarnesandNoble.com. The series will consist of
Games on the Go – Walking Games for Parents and Kids
Nature Play Along the Way for PreK – K
Nature Play Along the Way for Grades 1 & 2
Nature Play Along the Way for Grades 3 & 5
Nature Play Along the Way for Teachers (Activities that require eight or more kids)

Each book guides adults, be they parents, grandparents, teachers, scout leaders, youth group leaders, camp counselors, or afterschool teachers through nature activities that they can do with children, even if the adults don’t have a background in environmental education, science, nature, etc.

Why mention the books now? Well, as I mentioned, I’ve been working on the books on and off for years and I need an incentive to finish them. Telling ‘the world’ is (with hope) that push I need to write, revise, and edit this series. So, get set to explore ….

Walking Games with Kids

Whether you’ll be walking in the wood, through a park, along a city or suburban sidewalk, or, perhaps, through the mall, these walking games will engage young children. If older children think the game is too silly, then have them take turns leading the game or place them in charge of younger siblings.

Animals on the Move
Have the children pretend to be animals while walking from one spot to the next. At the beginning of this game you can select one or two animals and call them out randomly. Children must then act out that animal’s behavior for ten-to-fifteen seconds.

Fox – Red fox “perfect step,” which means that all four feet move in a single line and that the back feet step in the prints left behind by the front feet. Have the children walk placing one foot in front of another in a straight line.
Rabbit – Hop with feet together.
Hawk – Hold arms out to the side and pretend to soar.
Ant – Crawl along the ground in a straight line.
Geese – Try to walk so all participants are moving in a v-shape.

After introducing each animal and calling out the actions for the children to act out, you should be able to call out the animal’s name at any time and the kids should respond.

Animal Antics
This version allows for more random actions. If you are walking with children who are arguing about who gets to walk at the front of the line, this activity will eliminate the pushing and shoving by rotating the children from the front to the back of the line. Start by telling the children that when the leader make an animal sound, they must then act out the behavior of that animal for a count of ten while continuing to walk.

Select a child to be the leader. Point out a spot up ahead and tell the child that when the group reaches that point she should make an animal sound. (Why point out a place for the child to make the call? Depending on the child’s age, she may make an animal sound immediately upon it becoming her turn and then the group doesn’t get to move very far.) When the group hears the animal sound, they then act out the behavior they believe most appropriate. Rotate leaders.

The challenge with this game is encouraging the children to make the sound loud enough for the other children to hear. As the leader, you can help support the child-leader by encouraging them to repeat the sound as they turn to face the other children.

Now, get walking!

Photography for Kids – Go Out and Take Pictures

The past three days I’ve given tips and “assignments” that can help kids (really anyone) take better photographs. Reading tips, however, isn’t enough; kids need to explore nature with a camera in hand. The nature can be in their backyard, at a state forest, or at their summer camp. Kids can give themselves a goal – take 25 pictures a day, for example. They could take 25 pictures in ten minutes or over the course of ten hours. If they find an interesting subject they could take additional photographs.

I know a graphic designer who received a camera one Christmas and made it his goal to take 100 pictures each day, thereby teaching himself how to be a photographer. Granted, he had a trained artist’s eye, but still, he did a lot of experimentation as he played with the best angle to photograph ice and learned how the lighting at different times of day affected the forest, the field, water.

The first thing, of course, is that kids need access to a camera. There are enough inexpensive digital cameras that will allow a kid or teen to experiment without the concerns that come with borrowing mom or dad’s camera for a day. Here are some other tips for kids …

- Read the manual. It may be boring but it will tell you about features on the camera that you might overlook.
- Keep the batteries or camera charged. Have an extra set for backup. I’ve known a lot of kids that have had to stop taking pictures because their batteries died ten minutes after they turned on their camera.
- Download photos regularly and clear you memory card. There is nothing worse than losing a photo-taking opportunity because you are scanning through your camera’s memory trying to decide what to delete.
- Set a goal each day. Take pictures at different times of day. Do the “assignments” in composition, lighting, and angles.

Photography for Kids – Angles

Changing the angle at which you take a photograph is one of the most fun and easy ways to create interesting photographs. Instead of taking a picture head-on from the obvious “front” you produce imagines that get viewers to pause and maybe even think about what you are showing them.

By walking around a subject kids may discover a “secret” about that object that others overlook. By changing the tilt of the camera, kids can manipulate an image so to make it look larger or smaller

If you hold the camera high and angle it down, you can make something look smaller or foreshortened. Angling the camera is an easy bit of ‘trick’ photography; although you’re not creating an optical illusion, you are making people see the subject of your photo in a different way than they may normally have view that subject.

Walk around one interesting subject and take a
__Front angle
__Back angle
__Left angle
__Right angle

Select one subject and take a
__High angle
__Normal angle
__Low angle
__Take a picture while holding the camera at a small tilt
__Take a picture while holding the camera at a medium tilt
__Take a picture while holding the camera at a large tilt

Check out more fun art projects in by eBook, Art in Nature, Nature in Art.

Photography for Kids – Composition

I’m focusing on photography for a few days because it’s summer and kids go to camp or on vacation or do things they don’t normally do. This all adds up to opportunities for taking pictures. Whether kids have a disposable film camera, a digital camera, or a camera in their phone, they can practice some of the skills that will improve their pictures.

The activity below is a to-do list of sorts from my eBook Art in Nature, Nature in Art. If kids work their way through the list, not just once but several times, using different subjects, they will teach themselves how to take interesting photographs. In this case, interesting relies upon composition or where things are placed in an image. In some cases, kids can move something around before they take its picture, but in most cases the object is where it is. When kids can’t move the objects around, they can change their position, which will allow also them to modify their picture.

For example, stand back from a tree and take a picture of it from the ground to the leafy crown – this is a 3/3 crop. Move in closer and eliminate the bottom 1/3 of the scene and you have a 2/3 crop (because you can see 2/3 of the entire subject). If you go closer (or use a telephoto lens) to focus your picture on the leafy top of the tree you’ll have 1/3 crop. Don’t worry about dividing a subject exactly in thirds.

Another thing to think about is the Rule of Thirds. Imagine a grid that divides the image into thirds horizontally and vertically. A photographer should line up the subject of their photo along one of the imaginary horizontal or vertical lines. This allows the viewer’s eye to flow across the image without jerking here and there without settling.

__Take an overall picture of a scene
__Move in for six detail pictures
__Hold the camera vertically
__Hold the camera horizontally
__Take a picture at a tilt
__Crop an image 1/3
__Crop an image 2/3
__Crop an image 3/3
__Fill the frame with the subject
__Place the subject on the left 1/3line
__Place the subject on the right 1/3 line
__Place the subject on the bottom 1/3 line
__Place the subject on the top 1/3 line
__Place the subject on a “hot spot” – where vertical and horizontal lines meet

Photography for Kids – Lighting

The bright summer may be the most challenging light to take photographs in – particularly at midday. The lighting is harsh and the shadows create sharp contrasts. Maybe the best way for kids (and adults) to learn how to handle the challenges of natural lighting is to go out and take photographs in different conditions.

Unlike indoors, lighting isn’t something that you can control when you’re outdoors – or can you? You and your child can go to a location at different times of day to experience a variety of lighting situations. Let’s say you are vacationing beside a lake. You could take pictures of the lake from the same vantage point at sunrise, early morning, noon, late afternoon, early evening, sunset, and even at night. Kids could take pictures on a cloudless day, a partly cloudy day, and a cloudy day (even a cloudy day can have different lighting throughout the day).

Even if you are at home, kids can go into their yard and take a picture every day (or a few times throughout the day). Take some notes on paper or rename the pictures on the computer to note the lighting. It may seem like a bother at the time, but remind kids that they probably won’t remember the details a few days or a few months from now. Again, all of these experiments allow you to know what will work in the future. Learn to Take Beter Photographs.

__Take a picture in direct sunlight
__Take a picture in shade
__Take a backlit picture (the sun is behind the subject)
__Take a picture with the flash in direct sun
__Take a picture with the flash in shade
__Take a picture with the flash with backlighting

Nature Word Games for Kids

This word game relies on pathetic fallacy (a phrase that kids ages nine or ten and up will love to learn because it sounds so odd). Pathetic fallacy is the granting of human emotions to non-human things. When we say the flowers look happy or a scrawny tree seems sad, we are casting human emotions on the things.

For this activity you will need a stack of 3” x 5” index cards. On the cards, draw simple faces exhibiting different emotions. Go online and look for emoticons if you want some ideas. Draw the face and write the emotion underneath. You’ll want to start with a deck of at least twenty emotion cards. If you are doing this activity with a large group, plan on at least two cards for each child. During the play of the game, different children can use the same card.

Hand each child one of the cards. If the child can’t read the word, ask them what emotion they think the face is showing. Explain that their goal is to look around and find something that represents the emotion on their card. If children are confused, ask them to imagine life as a rock. Would the rock feel happy, sad, or bored?

If you have a group, you can warm up to this activity by asking them to imagine if different objects had emotions what feelings they would have? In poetry, the pathetic fallacy is the practice of attaching human emotions to nature, animals, and inanimate objects. You may decide to give this brief literary lesson to preteens or teens. With younger children, this activity can lead to a discussion of how things that aren’t alive don’t have feelings.

With a small group, when a child finds an object that represents the emotion on his card, the child can call the group to stop, point out the object and then allow the others 10-to-20 seconds to guess the emotion. With a large group, you could create a list poem, in which children connect the emotion to an object they saw on the walk. This poem also uses similes, or comparisons.

For example,
As stubborn as a rock
As bored as a fence
As flexible as a twig
As calm as a leaf

This activity connects a child to their own emotions as well as encourages empathy toward other things (and people).

For more word fun, try Writing Activities for Kids who Don't Like to Write and Write and Illustrate a Book of Poetry with Kids.

Nature Observation Games – A New Way of Seeing

It is easy to get caught up in walking and talking and looking straight ahead in the direction you’re headed. If we hear a noise, we may look up. If the footing is uneven, we may glance down. However, what do we miss by not looking up, down, and side-to-side as we walk? What do we miss by not noticing some of the smaller details along the way?

These two activities will get you and your children looking at those smaller details with a couple of games. ‘Angles’ can be played with any age. With young children, you may need to hold the object at the item you want them to describe. ‘Camera’ is appropriate if you are with one child or you have an even number of children who are at least seven years old and up so they can safely lead a partner wearing a blindfold. As always, you best know the children you are with.

Angles
You can do this activity one of two ways depending on if you want to use something small that you can hold or something large that you can stand next to. With a small object, you can either stop to pass it around or you can pass it among the children you are will as you walk along.

If you find something small, you hold it and describe it. The next person takes the object and describes it in a different way. Recommend that the child turn the object so she can look at it from a different angle. Continue passing the object around, each child describing it in a different way.

Remind children that they can use senses other than sight. How does the object sound if they run their finger down it? What does the item smell like? What is the object’s texture? (The children should avoid using their sense of taste.)

If the object is too large to hold – say a building or a statue, stop to gather around the object. Again, each person describes a different detail that they see, hear, smell, or feel. If the group is large, this may seem too challenging, but look at it as a way for the kids to use their creativity and imagination.

Large or small object, because children can’t repeat something else that someone else has said, they must not only use their observation skills but also pay attention to what the other children in the group have said.

Camera
Look for an area that offers a variety of things for individuals to observe. Since one player will have his eyes closed during much of the game, you may want to select terrain that the children with you will be able to physically manipulate.

One player (the photographer) leads another player (the camera) with her/his eyes closed to an interesting object. The photographer aims the camera and taps the camera’s shoulder or gently tugs on the camera’s ear. The camera opens its shutter (eyes) for 3-to-5 seconds then closes its shutter. After a few exposures, switch positions. Afterward, you could have students draw a picture of the most memorable thing they saw.

Introduce one of these games on a walk and save the other for another time. Both of these activities can easily work into your repertoire of walking games as they require no planning or supplies, just an awareness of the place around you.

Exploring Color in the Outdoors – Activities with Children

Color activities aren’t limited to preschoolers who are learning their colors. Color hunts and matching games can help young artists notice how the variety of hues around them goes beyond what a box of crayons or paint palette offers. Color activities work on observation skills and help children and adults become more aware of their surroundings. For more art-oriented activities, see my book, Art in Nature, Nature in Art.

Color Hunt
Go to the paint department of your local hardware store and gather an assortment of paint chip samples. Cut the paint strips into individual colors. For younger children who may be overwhelmed by the subtle variations of color offered by paint manufacturer’s, use a box of crayons so the children can stick with general colors.

On a walk, give each child one-to-three of the color chips. While walking, they should watch for items that are a close match to the examples. When they find a match, they can trade that color sample for another. You can also stop along the way and hand out color chips for the children to match while at that particular location.

Quick Colors
While walking, the adult stops and calls out “quick colors.” Everyone freezes for a count of ten and then starts calling out the different colors they see. Although younger children can be satisfied calling out colors like “green” or “blue,” older children can try to be more specific and imaginative and name colors as “blue-gray,” “cheddar cheese,” or “grape jelly.”

Just One Color
At any point during the walk, ask the children to look for items that share one particular color. Make the walk a challenge and select a color that doesn’t seem to be predominant in the area. Objects can be natural or manmade and can be any size. Depending on where you are walking, look for yellow in a swirl of a ball, the frame of a trampoline, a flower. If you are taking this walk with young children who are still learning their colors, bring along a crayon or piece of construction paper to show the color.