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.