Skip to main content

National Get Outdoors Day: June 11



This upcoming Saturday, June 11, is National Get Outdoors Day. It's part of the First Lady's initiative to get kids off the couches and fit to fight child hood obesity, called Let's Move Outside. Of course I'm a supporter of kids playing outside daily, no matter the season. I also love to read about kids and nature, find new spots locally to play, and build our own fun environments for outside play, like our Sand/Water table that is still, 3 years later, being played.
Richard Louv, who wrote Last Child in the Woods (I reviewed it here), is one of my all-time favorite non-fiction books about how children are loosing touch with the outdoors, and it's taxing them in many ways: obesity and related childhood disease, an over-stimulated brain, not connecting with nature (as in, relaxing and no-stress environment), and less respect for the environment with regards to consumerism.
A piece of our home-schooling pie (i.e. reasons for doing it) is so our children can have hours of unstructured, outdoor 'free play' which actually encourages learning. Not only that but it gets out the wiggles, or the excess of energy little ones seem to have. Even playing with a bucket of water with pails and shovels, like my children did today, is engaging in creative outdoor play! It can be so simple and of course, your own back-yard is a great place to start.
What will you do this week to get your kids outside?!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How To: DIY Sand/Water Table

How To: Build A Sand/Water Table for Under $30 ! Sorry this took me so long to blog, but I had to have a tool list and full instructions before I could do so. A little history on my love for the sand/water table . I love the idea behind tools for tiny hands, i.e. the Montessori Method , and like to have Lukka 'figure things out for himself', even when he is playing. I try to have the most simple and basic toys available for 3 reasons: a) simple toys generally have less parts, which means less of a hassle for me b) simple toys inspire way more creativity and imagination than do 'exact replica' toys c) they are much more aesthetically pleasing to look at, therefore, not making every nook and cranny of our house an eyesore! I know the last reason is just for me, but it's true. Plastic things don't generally last 1/2 as long as wooden or fabric toys, and they are unattractive. For this reason, I started to look for a wooden sand/water table as opposed to a pl...
11 comments
Read more

Home School Activities: Board Games We Love

My children have recently become enthralled in the world of board games. I was never a board game player. Sure, I remember long summer hours (days? it seemed like it..) spent around a Monopoly board, but I was never one to suggest to get out the cards, or a game. As my children have grown and they are now able to do activities with me, I started noticing that they really took to puzzles (when done all together) and the one or two board games I happened to have kept in the storage room. They were always asking to play Candy Land and so I figured I should branch off a bit. Over the course of the last year, I have found GREAT games, even ones that I love to play alongside them. The amount of 'teaching' they have gotten through games is jaw-dropping. Counting, team-playing, math related patterning, are just some of the skills I've watched develop. I asked before Christmas on facebook what my friends and their own kids loved and I was thrilled with the response. We have found ov...
3 comments
Read more

November - December Titles // 2024

 a moody December scene at Glen Valley I am just squeaking into the final few days for this post, and I am so glad I had Christmas break to boost a few more books into this somewhat meagre offering for Fall of 2024!  What did you read that you loved?  No Bootstraps When You're Barefoot by Wes Hall - This was a memoir I read for my bookclub, and although I found the first part very interesting, I read at least 75+ pages of his job (working his way up the 'wall street of Toronto') and I still don't know what he does.  This author grew up in Jamaica and honestly his ingenuity, quick learning ability, and resourcefulness helped him achieve amazing things, but it did feel a bit hollow toward the end. I don't think that was the intention, I just didn't overly love it.  The Hotel Balzaar by Kate DiCamillo - Again, I will read anything DiCamillo writes and be the first to have it ordered to my library! This lovely, nostalgic, and somewhat dour (at times) little middle...
Post a Comment
Read more