The Animal Analogy Game

At yesterday’s barbecue, a bright yellow parakeet landed in the yard and hung out with our party goers. The bird was hesitant when someone got too close, but it rarely flew off and instead would take a few sidesteps while watching us. Obviously, this was a pet that escaped but from where? We enjoyed the bird for quite a few hours. It got so bold as to land next to a piece of cake and begin eating just inches from where we sat!

An animal control volunteer showed up with a cage and the request that someone keep the bird until the next day when the animal control officer could take the animal. Our neighbor enjoyed a few more hours with the parakeet.

When the bird first appeared, someone called to me and said, “Look at the yellow cardinal.” It could have been a slip of the tongue that he said ‘cardinal’ and not ‘bird’ since we’d had a male and female cardinal flitting about the yard since morning. However, it is a good lesson in how our brains work; when faced with something we don’t know we compare it to something we do know so the unknown makes more sense.

We look at squirrels chasing one another and say they are playing, but they might be fighting over territory. On the other hand, noticing similarities can help us with identification and our understanding of what animals are doing.

Play an analogy game with your kids. This can get a bit silly, and that’s fine! On at least ten slips of paper, write one common human object (chair, car, etc). On another ten slips of paper, write the name of any sort of mammal, bird, fish, insect, reptile, or amphibian. Keep the two categories, human stuff v animals separate. Place each stack in individual bags, bowls, or hats.

Pull one slip from each bag. Now the fun begins. Everyone uses their creativity to find something that these two dissimilar things have in common. How is a cat like a car? How is a book like a squirrel? There is no right answer, no wrong answer, just imaginative fun!

Observation Loop – Get Kids to Focus Small

A common naturalist’s tool for getting children to focus on a small area is to intentionally or randomly set a Hula hoop on the ground. Kids then use this boundary for their close-up investigation. See, if you just point to a grassy area in a yard or a leaf-strewn area in the forest kids will glance at the area (maybe, but not likely, crouching to do so), and tell you they see nothing. Define the area and now it’s easier for kids to center their attention.

Of course, a Hula hoop is an awkward item to carry on a walk, so you can carry a piece of rope. Tie two sliding knots and you can adjust the size of your loop. To do this, take a twelve foot piece of rope and cross the two ends over one another so they extend approximately a foot beyond the point where they cross. Now, knot one end to the loop and the knot the other end to the loop. You should be able to slide the knots along the loop, making the circle larger or smaller.

Go for a walk and find a spot to set the loop. Don’t worry if you don’t see anything obvious about that location, the key to the observation loop is that it helps to reveal things that you’d overlook. You and the kids may have to squat or kneel around the loop to get closer. Move the leaf litter (gently), push aside the blades of grass as you and your children look for insects, worm castings (little piles of soil), seeds, rocks, holes or trails worn into the soil, and whatever else you might find.

You don’t need magnifying glasses, although kids may enjoy using them as they are thinking small. The object of the activity is to learn that you just can’t give something in nature (and beyond) a quick glance and think that you’ve seen and learned everything that you need to. This activity encourages patience and if your child isn’t patient then when you set down the observation loop you can challenge them to find the five or ten secret or hidden things. You don’t have to know what these five or ten things are, but a random number makes this observation more task-oriented.

You can bring this loop of rope anywhere – forest, field, backyard, etc – and learn to see the tiny worlds that you normally walk past.

Sensory Walks with Kids

Don’t relegate sensory explorations of nature to preschoolers. Sensory activities are fantastic observation actions that go beyond noticing nature with our eyes alone. Becoming aware of the world around us with our senses is a mindfulness technique that even adults can use to reduce stress. So much information from our surroundings enters our brains that it is forced to filter out or push aside many details. By aligning with our senses, we are directing our brain’s focus toward what is important to us.

Single Sense Exploration – Focus your walk, or part of your walk, on investigating the area with emphasis on one sense. Pay more attention to the odors you walk past. Notice the different sounds and try to individualize each noise so it is more than just background chatter. Run your hand over the dew on the grass, the bark of trees, the delicate-looking flower petals. Give your child a challenge to notice 10 or 25 different smells, sounds, textures, colors, or interesting things to look at.

Notice 5 – During a walk, stop and call out, “Notice 5 smells/textures/sounds/colors (you, as leader, will select one).” Each individual, or everyone as a group, plants their feet in place and calls out five things they notice connected to the sensory mode you selected. Doing this once during a walk is sufficient to avoid haranguing those with you. Adults should play along with children.

5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – Once during a walk, do a sensory countdown. Ask for five sounds, four colors, three smells, two textures, one interesting thing that you are looking at. You can shuffle around the senses so each time you play this, children and adults are focusing on different senses.

Select one of these activities to do on a walk, even if it just up the street to school. You can also try some Listening to Nature Activities. Your walk will seem richer as you notice things that you may have walked by dozens of times in the past. This may become such a part of you outdoor routine, that you children will lead the activities or you (and they) will find yourselves doing them on their own.

Kids and Collecting in Nature

On this morning’s walk, I feel as if I am wading through maple samaras, those little propellers that, when broken open, stick nicely to your nose or fingertips. But we’ve had rain forever and these seeds are plastered to the road. They probably didn’t even pirouette out of the trees.

I pick up one, thinking to take a picture of it at home. Well, I can’t just take a picture of one maple seed and I come upon some more that instead of being bright green are tinged red. Then there are small keys with the propellers going in the same direction instead of leaning off in different directions. And then there were the keys with plump instead of flat seeds. Well, you get the idea.

Many kids are natural collectors. Even if they don’t bring their treasures home, chances are they are inclined to at least pick up a leaf, rock, acorn, stick … something. You can direct that energy – gathering is a great observation activity and can be focusing and calming. This does require a bit of observation on your part; look for something profuse in the area. If you notice a lot of acorns, challenge your children to collect as many acorns as they can in 30 seconds.

After collecting, you can ask your kids to sort what they’ve collected from smallest to largest, lightest to darkest, or whatever pattern the child can think up. If you don’t want your child picking up a handful of pink rocks or a pocketful of maple samaras, but you that he or she is inclined toward picking up something, challenge them to find the biggest and smallest __________ in the space between two trees, logs, rocks, or other markers of a defined space.

To (try to) convince your child to leave their treasures in nature, stop shortly before the end of your walk (when home or the car isn’t in sight) and ask your child to make a picture or pattern with what they’ve collected so other people can see the child’s wonderful finds. If the child knows or is learning her letters, she could write a word with what she’s collected, such as, “Hi,” “Peace,” “Walk,” or whatever short word strikes the child’s fancy.

By collecting, the child is noticing what is out there in nature. Don’t worry that they won’t see everything, the experience, and memory, of the time they collected 107 acorns on a walk will be enough.

Go Outside for a Walk with Your Children

As an adult, do you associate the outdoors with chores such as mowing the lawn and gardening; sports (as a spectator and as a participant); or with outdoor recreation such as canoeing/kayaking, mountain biking, or hiking up mountains?

You know your kids should spend more time – more free time – outside, but they do sports and have recess at school, so is that enough? However, look at spending time outdoors not just as a “kid” and not even as a “family” thing, but as something that everyone can enjoy in their own special way. The outdoors doesn’t have to be about chores, sports, and organized activities. Spending time outside can be as simple as taking a walk.

Think of a walk as exercise for your body, mind, and spirit. Your heart will pump a little more, your thoughts may seem a little clearer, and your heart may lift a bit higher as you watch the changes of the seasons. A walk is simple. You can direct your child with a few Hiking Games to Get You Moving Outdoors, or just allow your children to explore as they will. If your children like to meander and look at things, then plan to walk a shorter distance so you can stay within your time expectations.

Where to go? Go beyond your backyard and walk through your neighborhood. Explore wooded areas around schoolyards and recreations fields as long as they aren’t posted as private property (they may be an extension of the school or town’s property). Ask other families if they walk in nature and where they go. Look on your town’s website for walking trails.

Do an Internet search of your state and find out what conservation and recreation organizations have locations in your area. Although many charge an annual membership fee, that can work out cheaper than paying one-time trail fees. Before you join, make certain that there are sites within an hour of your house. Closer than that is better because then it won’t feel like an ordeal to drive the distance to take a short walk and then have to drive home. The closer the locations to your home, the more likely you’ll go walking when your child has a half day at school or plans fall through on Saturday morning and you’re wonder what to do for a few hours.

Be creative in getting yourself and your children outdoors for a walk. I love walking the paths of a local cemetery. I’ve found wooded walking paths around a couple of museums. Make a list; keep a file of trail maps the way you keep a file of pizza places. Know where you can get to in less than twenty minutes; jot down notes about what you and your kids liked and didn’t like at different locations. Put on your sneakers and go outside.

The Colors of Nature

Color activities work with children of all ages. With younger children, looking at the colors in nature helps to teach them their colors as they learn that “red” isn’t always the red in a box of Crayola crayons. With older children and preteens, color activities become more art-based and noticing nature can help this more independent bunch learn how to combine colors in their clothing or their rooms.

Rainbow Hunt – For a color activity that doesn’t require any props, simply challenge children on a walk to find one example of every color of the rainbow or the basic box of eight crayons. Play this as a memory game as well, by naming the different colors and having the children respond with what they found with that color.

Colors of the Season – Cut four-inch squares of construction paper in colors that the child would see on a nature walk – for spring, yellow, light green, dark green, white, pink. Punch a hole in each square and string onto a piece of yarn. As the child walks, they must find examples of those specific colors. If you are with more than one child, rotate the necklace to different children who then get to show the others with them at least one example of each color on the necklace.

Seasonal Color Wheel – Older children may prefer the challenge of mixing paint or color pencils to create the colors they see during a particular walk through nature.

Rainbow Stories – For this activity you’ll need a bag of multi-colored pony beads and enough yarn to make a necklace for each child. As the children find object in different colors, they earn one bead for each color. You can require that two children can’t suggest the same item to earn a bead (so if one child earns a yellow bead for a buttercup, another child must look for a bumblebee or a dandelion to earn their bead).

At the end of the walk, the children must recall the items that earned them each bead and then incorporate those items into a story that they will tell the others with them.

For the child interested in animals, try these Adventures in Color and Camouflage to show the child how animals rely upon the colors of nature to offer them protection. Whether kids are learning their colors or already know their colors, you can incorporate the hues in nature into art, storytelling, and science activities.

Nature on the Edge

Finding animals in nature is not like walking around the zoo. When kids visit the wildlife sanctuary where I work and they ask what animals they will see, I usually start off by telling them that large animals like deer and coyote aren’t often active at ten in the morning, nor would they tolerate the large and noisy group of children stomping through their home.

However, if they pay attention, they will see lots of insects, see and hear birds, and see (and perhaps hear) frogs. Quite often we get to see red and gray squirrels as well as chipmunks. On occasion, deer (usually yearlings or mothers with fawns) hang out alongside the trails. Sometimes a mother turkey (once with eleven poults) will claim the fields along the most traveled trail for her territory.

Sometimes, it is a matter of looking carefully. Children will often see snakes that I just walked by. My movements probably cause the snake to move, so those children behind me get to see its response. I once saw a ribbon snake clinging to the side of a yellow birch, sunning. I wouldn’t have expected to catch a snake there, I’m glad that it caught my eye.

Where I live, the backyard doesn’t go back ten feet before turning into an edge habitat - tangles of shrubs and weeds, rocks and fill. Beyond that is the neighbor’s backyard from the next street over. A narrow wooded area runs between the backyards from the two streets.

Here I have watched gray squirrels, rabbits, and a groundhog. Last year I was highly surprised to watch a long-tailed weasel dash from my front yard across the street. Earlier this spring I watched a hawk land on a branch and stare at the scruffy edge at the end of the lawn. Within minutes, the hawk swooped and returned to the branch with a shrew. This past weekend I saw a deer meandering in the woods.

What I’m saying, is that you have to be willing to see what you see. You can’t expect a certain animal to appear when you want it to. Whether you live in an urban, suburban, or rural area, take the time to look out the window throughout the day. If you and your children are outside, you may disturb the animals, so this is an odd case where you need to be indoors to see what is outdoors. Look outside before the sun is up, when it first rises, mid-morning, afternoon, mid-afternoon, dusk, night. Don’t just glance outside, gaze.

You can encourage children to look out their bedroom window throughout the day. Set a journal beside the window so the child can record what they see and when they see it. This requires some patience, days and days could go by without spotting a squirrel. But, the day the child notices a hawk in the tree in the front yard, it will be worth the wait.

Nature Art for Kids – Word Art

Use rocks, twigs, and seashells to write messages to others who'll visit your location after you've left. You can do this art in nature project almost anywhere. This is a fun activity for children just learning their letters; but, it is even more enjoyable for children who can spell. For this kids’ craft, children use natural materials to write messages to others who will later discover their simple endeavors.

Children will need to gather a supply of twigs, pine cones, seashells, pebbles, acorns, etc. with which to write a letter or word. The location will determine the materials the children use. Kids might decide to write out each letter with a different object or use a mix of natural materials to create each letter. Encourage children to experiment and then judge the results.

When you select a location, you want it to be somewhere others will see the message without destroying it should a walker who isn’t paying attention accidentally scattering the letters with her feet. You should also be careful to avoid doing this on lawns – when a lawnmower comes on the scene, it could be dangerous for the operator and anyone in the area if pebbles or twigs start flying as the cutting blade runs over your project.

Children will also find it easier to work if they select a location where others don’t have to sidestep around a child to get to where they are going – so, no doorways, pathways, etc. It can be a challenge to find a spot where kids can work but where others will see their artistic messages.

With a work area and a supply of natural materials, children can write out words or messages to those who’ll come along at a later time and discover these expressions. This can be as simple as “Hello,” or can encourage an action, “Shhh,” or “Look up.” Letters six-to-twelve inches high work up quickly. You may want children to start with words containing approximately five letters.

Young children who are just learning their letters can use their gathered materials to form letters. Have a bit of fun by making a “T” next to a tree or an “S” from seashells. This is a casual way to reinforce what a child is learning in school. If your child is enjoying the process, you could help him write out simple words. When possible, scratch the letters in the sand or dirt and allow the children to form the letters with found objects.

This is a fun and easy kids’ activity to do while you are resting alongside a natural trail or while you are picnicking or having a snack. Children may become inspired to write a series of words, which develop into a short phrase when read together as someone moves along a quarter-mile or even a mile section of trail.

Find more nature-inspired art and craft projects in Art in Nature/Nature in Art: Art Experiences for Kids Ages 8 – to – 14 and their Creative Adults.

A Backyard of Baby Animals

Originally published June 12, 2009 at Suite101.com

I’m sitting at the dining room table, writing, or pretending to write because a gray squirrel has perched on the railing surrounding the deck behind my apartment. After a moment of vigorous grooming, it sprawls over the railing, four feet dangling. Flattened on this branch-substitute, a second gray squirrel meanders across the deck and down the stairs. Neither squirrel seems aware of the other.

Unlike the third squirrel to appear, this one walks along the railing until it notices squirrel number one (that also notices this railing invader) and with distinct “hey, I’m not here to cause any trouble,” body language, squirrel three backs up.

Only it doesn’t get far because a slightly larger gray squirrel is right behind it. It presses the smaller squirrel to the railing and immediately begins grooming it (with much enthusiastic chewing of fleas, lice, and whatever else). At this point, I want my camera, which I usually keep downstairs, but it’s upstairs charging for a weekend event. I risk crossing the room and getting the camera (the back door is wide open and I’m convinced the squirrels will hear the floorboards creak and head up the nearest tree). The squirrels are still grooming.

Squirrels two, three, and four bound off for a vigorous wrestling match in the poison ivy (their fur protects their skin from getting a rash). Squirrel number one is still draped over the railing, watching.

Three house sparrows drop onto the deck, all with the dull coloring of the female. One sparrow hunches into a ball and cheeps until another sparrow feeds it. A male house sparrow, with his brighter chestnut feathers, drops nearby into the grass. I realize that I’m looking at parents feeding their fledglings – juveniles old enough to fly short distances but still looking for a handout from mom and dad.

The gray squirrel, tired of perching on the rectangular branch that is my railing, jumps to the ground, causing the birds to take wing. Even in the small, shared backyard of an apartment, the spring’s bounty of baby animals is evident.

Imagination Connections in Nature

How often do you look up at the clouds and imagine seeing dancing elephants and mice chasing tigers? If you don’t envision representations of reality in the clouds, do your children?

I have always loved looking for and finding pictures and patterns in seemingly random things. I have tried to play my cloud game with other adults while we drive along the highway and I tend to hit a resistance that I’ve never encountered with kids and young teens. After a few suggestions, adults sometimes grudgingly tell me that they can’t see what I’m seeing but then they tell me what they see in the pattern of clouds.

Try this with your kids: Look for figures within the pattern of things around you. I have seen faces in the wood grain of doors. The other day, I saw a stick that had a distinct bear-ness to its stance in spite of its skinny stick-ness. It was like an armature waiting to be fleshed out with clay.

It isn’t necessary for clouds, leaves, sticks, rock formation, shrubs, and all that stuff to look like an exact sculpture of what we imagine. In a world where we are accustomed to uniform manufactured items, a three-legged cloud dog may bother children with its imperfection (“That doesn’t look like a real dog.”) but it opens children, and the adults playing along, to curiosity and creativity.

Creativity is not black-and-white. Creativity is gray and fuzzy. It is a starting point. Even a “finished” creative piece can be a jumping off point for future endeavors. (“Next time, I’ll use pink and green together.” “Next time, I’ll add more onions to the soup.”)

This simple creative activity can help children develop problem-solving skills. They realize that they don’t have to accept something as is and that they can look for other options. Kids can learn that it is fun to look for options instead of to wipe the sweat from their brow with relief that they can find one way of doing something, even if that choice is lackluster. Children can learn to recognize patterns as their brains fill in details.

The simple and silly action of looking for faces and figures in the natural (and manmade) world doesn’t take any time, you can do it while driving (watch the road, though), walking, or doing anything else during which time you pause to look around at your surroundings with the fuzzy view that while things are what they are they can also look like other things.

If you don’t normally look for images within other objects, it may take you a while to develop this habit. As I said, this doesn’t have to be a formal activity, you and the kids can just call out the faces and figures you see when you see them. Forcing things for the sake of a game diminishes inspired observations. When someone takes an inventive view of an object, pause for a few seconds to admire their connection. It isn’t necessary to agree, disagree, or offer another point of view. Creativity isn’t about right or wrong; it is about options.

Take Your Teddy Bear for a Walk

Chances are that your kids have indoor toys and outdoor toys. However, they can liven up their outdoor play by taking some of those indoor toys outside. This may actually encourage children to play outside, particularly if they thought that the only way they could play with certain items was to do so inside.

If your child likes playing dress up, then dressing up like a fairy or a knight takes on a whole new level when the child can bestow fairy magic to the flowers in the garden or the child can sneak among the trees and shrubs in search of dragons and evildoers.

Barbie may enjoy a boating expedition down a slow-moving stream. Invite stuffed animals to a picnic under the backyard tree instead of keeping them cooped up inside waiting for high tea. Action figures may encounter more action among grass and fallen branches than they’d ever come across in the land of carpeting and dining room chair legs.

Okay, building toys like K’nex or Lego probably won’t manage grass and dirt without a number of pieces going missing. However, if your child hasn’t played with a toy for months, see if taking it outside gives the item a second life.

Work jigsaw puzzles on a piece of plywood. Draw, color, paint, or work on activity books outside at a picnic table.

Taking indoor toys outside just might spark your children’s imaginations and creativity.

Create a Photo Story

When was the last time your child held a camera? Did they use your camera or did they use their own camera? What was the occasion? Kids don’t have to limit taking pictures to vacations and school field trips. Digital cameras are inexpensive enough nowadays that parents don’t have to worry about handing over their expensive camera when their child wants to take pictures. Once a child has the physical ability to hold and aim the camera while pressing the shutter button, they can start exploring this hobby, which gives them another way to connect with nature.

Some kids (even, or especially, adolescents) go a bit wild when they get their hands on a camera. I had one experience with a group of homeschoolers where they spent the first day of a nature photography class taking close-up pictures of each others’ nostrils. Cameras can become an exploration tool.

Send your kids into the backyard with a camera and ask them to take pictures that tell a story. The story might be, “After the Rain,” “Spring,” “Green.” This is a case where kids don’t have to worry about incorporating an exciting plot. Encourage them to take a lot of pictures and then come inside and pick their favorites. They can then order the photos into a story. This last part, indoors and on the computer, can be a way for parent and child to talk about the child’s experiences outdoors.

Turn the photos into a slideshow screen saver on the family computer. Print the photos and slide them into a small album; add words to elaborate on the story or allow the pictures to speak for themselves.
Although a child’s first forays into photography may not produce much more than some out-of-focus close-ups, they can continue to use a camera to capture their observations of nature.

Nature Lists

Okay, maybe the only writing you do on a regular basis is emails; the idea of writing for fun – for the sake of writing – may have never crossed your mind. Your child may or may not feel excited by the prospects of writing; most of what he does is connected to schoolwork.

So, why write in nature? Nature provides a wonderful source of inspiration. Instead of dredging through memories, you can write about what you see at that very moment. Before you turn away from this blog, the writing activity I’m suggesting is super easy, as in if you can write a list for the supermarket you can write this list poem.

A list poem is just what it sounds like – a list. You don’t need to worry about rhyme, parts of speech, punctuation, grammar, or anything else that often causes people to stare at a white sheet of paper as if they are gazing at their doom. This is a fun (really) poem for one or for a group.

Select a topic, something that you are looking at, whether that is the beach, a forest, a park, a tree, a garden, a flower, or whatever else captures you eye. Write the name at the top of the page, “Horseneck Beach,” “Piping Plover,” “Red Maple Swamp,” “Tree,” “Thunderstorm.”
Now, write a list. The list could be nouns – tangible things associated with your topic. You might list verbs – actions engaged in by the topic.

You may even combine the two into short phrases, object with its action (“branches sway”). Each word or brief phrase gets its own line in this poem. The words don’t have to be in any particular order, although as you make your list, you could decide to rearrange the order of some of the words.

This is it. You’ll want at least five lines to your poem. Although this sounds simplistic, the effect of reading the list aloud can be powerful and impressive. The single words or brief phrases captures not just the essence of your topic but shows your emotional connection to your subject through your word choice.

For young children, this can be a bit like a game; for older children, adolescents, and adults, this is a simple way to express their observations. A group can call out words to one person who records them and they will create a document that binds together their experiences.

You and your children can incorporate these poems into artwork, photo albums, scrapbooks. List poems can become a spontaneous activity at any time, in any place.

Seasonal Color Wheel

What are the colors of spring? Summer? Autumn? Winter? Each season offers a unique color palette. If an interior decorator selected colors for four rooms in the colors of each season, chances are that you’d have no difficulty telling what season was represented in each room. Once children become old enough to be aware that they’ve experienced a season in their past, they too would recognize the colors of the seasons.

You can do these activities during any season; you could even do them each month of the year. The activities go beyond simple color recognition to noticing the variations within colors. Try these as art projects, even if you don’t feel that you yourself are artistically inclined. Do the activities along with your children, students, scouts, or campers.

Color Match
Go to the hardware store and collect an assortment of paint chip samples (start with greens, browns, and grays). If you have the time and inclination, cut the strips apart into individual colors and toss them in a bag or envelope. Now, go outside with the kids and give everyone at least one of the paint samples and encourage them to explore the area looking for as close a match in nature as they can possibly find.

Players can switch to different colors if they can’t find what they are trying to match, or they can hold onto a color in the hopes of matching it elsewhere along their walk. Try this activity in natural settings as well as urban or suburban settings to contrast the colors of not just seasons but environments.

Color Wheel
This activity is a bit more complex because instead of matching colors the participants are creating color matches. Each player will need some paper and either colored pencils or watercolors. Although the manufacture is providing a range of colors, point out those colors can be mixed or layered to create other colors.

Take a plate and draw a circle on the paper. Divide the circle into six, eight, or twelve pie sections. Now, go outside and select a color distinctive of the season and color in one of the pie sections. Again, the yellow of forsythia might not be the yellow of the colored pencil, so encourage exploration and experimentation with the materials as participants practice mixing or layering colors.

Fill in each pie section with a different color. Notice how not all green leaves are the same color green and try to duplicate these different hues. Label the page with the season or the month. Try to repeat throughout the year, creating a color palette for each season.

Try either of these activities with preschoolers all the way up through adults. They give you an awareness of the variety of colors around you as well as bring clarity to the distinctive qualities of each time of the year.

The Lure of the Indoors

Last week I didn’t go outside as much as I could have. Yes, many of the mornings were dull and rainy but I could have taken a walk later in the day. I was coordinating a dance show and practicing for my performance but I still could have taken a short neighborhood walk. Instead, I spent much of my week glued to my computer watching the leaves on the trees and shrubs in the backyard opening a little bit more with each passing day.

People are always talking about how kids should spend more time outside and less time indoors watching television and playing computer games. However, how many adults who may exhort their children to go outdoors take their own suggestion?

I think we get caught up in thinking how outdoor activities and indoor activities are two separate animals. The outdoors is for gardening, walking, running around, playing sports, working on the car, fishing, etc. Yet, when was the last time you read a chapter from your book while sitting outside? Could kids take their homework outside or even (yes, the horror) bring their handheld electronic game outside?

Being outside doesn’t have to mean that we need to do anything outdoorsy. I have a deck with table and chairs literally on the other side of the wall where I am sitting now at a table typing. Granted, the door is open and the fresh air is coming inside, so why do I feel the need to sit on this side of that wall?

Read a storybook to your children while outside or encourage them to take their book outside and sprawl on a lawn chair instead of their bed. Persuade them to draw and paint; play with their cars or dolls; or give a new existence to a toy that’s become boring by playing with it outside. Yes, some pieces may get left outside and something will get rained on, but this also teaches children respect and responsibility for their belongings.

Challenge yourself and your children to do one thing this week that has no obligation to be done in the out of doors.