Nature Play: The Heart of Homeschooling
For me, the heart of homeschooling is being out in nature with a group of friends, letting things happen. Today three of my friends and their kids joined us on an outdoor excursion to a wetland area I hadn't yet visited. It's in the middle of a trendy housing development, and is restored wetland taken over from an airport. I could tell from looking at the satellite pictures on google maps that it had two little ponds, a few creeks, and some trails. But I wasn't sure if it would just be a lot of yellow grass and garbage, or full of fun nooks to explore and things to discover. March in Colorado is spring trying its hardest to wake up, so most of the land is still brown. Not a lot of bugs to find. Patches of snow and mud surrounded by dry and brown. But we had such a fabulous time and made many discoveries. It was a perfect example of just letting learning happen.
We had fun and got muddy trying to get down to the water. Ann Patchet writes, "Water will always seek out its own." (The Patron Saint of Liars, p1) Well, we are mostly water, and a big part of these nature excursions is to seek out water in our arid mountain habitat. We found a tiny bright green katydid or grasshopper, a flash of spring against the reddish sticky mud. One of the seven-year-olds discovered an owl pellet, which she dissected with the tweezers I had brought along. We took the pH of two streams using simple pH strips, and discovered that a thin film of alkaline water floats on the surface of the otherwise neutral water, probably from oil and soap from road run-off. We found bat houses, under which were poops that had seed in them. I know the bats here eat mostly bugs, but there aren't a lot of bugs out yet, so my hypothesis was that they eat seeds in the spring before the bugs come out. Or maybe the droppings were from a bird, as the bats are probably still in mild hibernation. We saw coyote and deer or rabbit scat. And we saw prints from some very large raccoons. We heard and saw robins, a meadowlark, a jay, and a couple of hawks.
Then we found a lovely little area in which to sit and talk while the kids ran and played and threw snow at each other. They tossed a ball around they had discovered in one of the culverts. They shared snacks. Then the little ones started to get fussy, and we all headed back to the cars.
I feel so happy that my kids get to play in nature this way, and to discover that nature can exist - thrive! - in a suburban setting. They get to free play and learn through doing. the babies can throw stuff in the water to see it splash, and the big kids (all of seven years old) can contemplate predator and prey relationships. I feel happy that these places exist at all, and that I can use my outdoor education experience to create opportunities that my kids just take fro granted, a day of playing outside and exploring and discovering the world and themselves.
We had fun and got muddy trying to get down to the water. Ann Patchet writes, "Water will always seek out its own." (The Patron Saint of Liars, p1) Well, we are mostly water, and a big part of these nature excursions is to seek out water in our arid mountain habitat. We found a tiny bright green katydid or grasshopper, a flash of spring against the reddish sticky mud. One of the seven-year-olds discovered an owl pellet, which she dissected with the tweezers I had brought along. We took the pH of two streams using simple pH strips, and discovered that a thin film of alkaline water floats on the surface of the otherwise neutral water, probably from oil and soap from road run-off. We found bat houses, under which were poops that had seed in them. I know the bats here eat mostly bugs, but there aren't a lot of bugs out yet, so my hypothesis was that they eat seeds in the spring before the bugs come out. Or maybe the droppings were from a bird, as the bats are probably still in mild hibernation. We saw coyote and deer or rabbit scat. And we saw prints from some very large raccoons. We heard and saw robins, a meadowlark, a jay, and a couple of hawks.
Then we found a lovely little area in which to sit and talk while the kids ran and played and threw snow at each other. They tossed a ball around they had discovered in one of the culverts. They shared snacks. Then the little ones started to get fussy, and we all headed back to the cars.
I feel so happy that my kids get to play in nature this way, and to discover that nature can exist - thrive! - in a suburban setting. They get to free play and learn through doing. the babies can throw stuff in the water to see it splash, and the big kids (all of seven years old) can contemplate predator and prey relationships. I feel happy that these places exist at all, and that I can use my outdoor education experience to create opportunities that my kids just take fro granted, a day of playing outside and exploring and discovering the world and themselves.
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