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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?!
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