10 THINGS TO DO WITH KIDS

1. Theme hikes: Set off for an explore using color (or scents, sounds or textures) as the theme.  Ask your child to find something green, red, brown, etc.  Encourage them to make up their own theme.

2. Explore the Forest Floor: Pack a plastic cup or bug jar and a plastic spoon.  Dig around in the leaf litter and look for small creatures.  Look under logs and rocks to see what might be there.  Be sure to gently replace them as you found them.

3. Nature’s Music: Find a special spot where you and your child might sit for a moment.  Close your eyes (or play “zipper your mouth” for younger children) and count the many sounds of nature.  Then make your own music by imitating the sounds around you!

4. Read a Story in an Unusual Place: Pack an exploration pack filled with some favorite books.  Take them into the woods, to the beach, or to the pond.  Designate a spot the “magic reading rock/tree/dune” and settle in.  Just wait, when you revisit the spot, they’ll likely remember it as special.

5. Song exploration: Incorporate song into your exploration by singing to the birds, the trees, or the flowers.  Create a song using the melody of “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” to get you back home – “Follow the tall trees back home”, or “Follow the muddy path home”.  Songs will always grab the attention of a young child and help lead them along and engage.

6. Movement and Games: Hop like a frog, wiggle and giggle like a worm, flutter by like a butterfly.  Use your body to explore how trees can sway but never walk, how flowers and leaves begin as tightly wound buds, grow and then flower by smiling to the sun.

7. Dance with the wind: Bring along some light paper such as streamers.  Attach to a stick and let your children dance with the wind.  Hold it high and hold it low.  Tell your child s/he is a wind runner.

8. Lie on your back, lie on your belly: Stretch out under a tree to change the perspective of your exploration.  Alternatively, put your nose into the dirt and grass.  Smell the freshness and imagine all the small creatures that make the ground their home.

9. View the world in miniature: As you walk along, encourage your children to pretend that they are very tiny.  What would the moss look like (a big rolling meadow)?  Small twigs would resemble fallen trees.

10.  Look for Signs of Animal Activity: Search for tracks in the mud or broken nuts or acorns.  Find nests and the entrances to burrows – just remember not to poke anything in!  Look for fur and feathers.