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.

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).

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.

Nature Counting Game – Outdoor Inventories

Doing things in nature doesn’t have to be complicated (camping, kayaking) or require vast knowledge of the outdoors (lenticels?). Just go outside and take a walk with your children. Notice what is out there. Games, like ‘I Spy’ are fun because they get you to pay attention to the things surrounding you in a low-key way.

You don’t have to feel as if you are teaching your kids something each time you go outside. Nor is it necessary for them to spout nature facts. Experiencing the outdoors with your senses is enough for both you and your children to learn something about the world.

The nature counting game is an easy, you-don’t-have-to-plan-anything-in-advance, sort of activity. Simply select something to count while you are on your walk. No, really, it’s more fun than you might think (or maybe I just like counting things!).

You can count chipmunks, yellow flowers, red leaves, white rocks, etc.
The key is to select something that you think you’ll find but not in such a great quantity (field of daffodils) that it would be ridiculous to count. Do this with your kids for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. Or, count as you walk from one spot to the next.

If your children are young, work together looking for one type of thing (you don’t really have to count, just look for and notice one thing – but, chances are, you’ll start counting). If your children are older, each person could look for something different; perhaps starting the walk with each person predicting what they think will be the most obvious thing to find that day on that walk.

Your goal isn’t numbers, but an awareness of what you have walked passed along the way.

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.