Nature Investigation and Imagination

When walking with your child or children you can keep a few games in mind to play along the way. The games help to focus both you and your children on your surroundings. It is easy to get caught up in conversations, which, although valuable to your relationship, can move you out of the present moment. Instead of noticing where you are walking at the moment you are busy talking about going to the mall and selecting a birthday present for the child’s friend.

You can still talk, but every so often try to bring everyone’s awareness to the moment with sensory activities. The following game starts off with observation and works its ways to a (sometimes wild) imagination activity. Whether your child is a preschooler or a preteen, this word game allows kids to stretch their creativity.

One person starts this game by looking around and selecting something fairly large that is within view, such as a mountain or a tree, and says, “I see a tree.” The next person then picks something big on the tree, and says, “I see bark on the tree.” The next person has to pick a thing that’s on the bark, “I see a branch on the bark.” (If two people are playing, then you would go back-and-forth with your child.)

Participants continue in this fashion, noticing smaller and more specific details until they can no longer actually see anything to mention. Then they are free to make up details, such as, “I see a bug on the leaf,” and the next person might say, “I see a baby bug on the back of the big bug,” and so on until players can’t think of anything smaller. Move down the trail and have a different individual start another round.

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.

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.

Storytelling and Supposition: What's Going on in Nature?

On this morning’s walk several crows (a murder of crows), were going crazy. When I saw a hawk fly up into a tree, followed by four crows, I knew I was seeing mobbing. Crows and other birds will gang up on hawks and owls as a way of pushing predators out of their territory. Now this hawk sat up in a tree, staring at a pond (musing upon frog legs for breakfast?) while the four crows continued to harangue it.

I didn’t find this strange. What was odd was that as I drew closer to the tree (50 feet?) one of the crows flew into a tree closer to the road where I was walking. This crow was silent. The other three crows, no more than ten feet from the hawk also fell silent as I passed. Once I had gone by the tree, the crows started up again and continued cawing until I could no longer hear them.

What caught my curiosity was that this group of crows, perched ten feet from something that could eat them for breakfast, fell silent as I (50 feet away) walked by. Why? What’s going on?

a) The crows thought it was likelier that I would catch one of them than the hawk that was wing’s length away

b) The crows have experienced humans who would side with the charismatic predator and throw things at them so they thought that silence was warranted

c) The crows went the same path as a group of fighting kids suddenly feigning innocence when an adult walks in the room

When you and your kids see something going on in nature, ask why and what and how. Let the kids tell stories, whether that story is a sentence long or the idea takes hold and gets the child chatting for twenty minutes. These stories don’t have to be based on book facts. However, you can encourage the children to incorporate details that they have observed.

This activity encourages creativity and imagination but also observation and curiosity – the kids have to notice something that is different than what they’ve noticed in the past, which means that they need to learn to pay attention to their surroundings on a regular basis, not just while playing games. Read more at Tell a Group Story with Children.

Also, it’s fun to make things up while trying to figure out the world. (Why did the crows fall silent?”