The Nature Place Day Camp
 

    This is a good place to learn about our:
Philosophy, FAQ
Location and
Programming
Contact Info
 

    Key information for the current season:
Forms and Letters For Parents
Gallery
 
 

    Our Current Information and Activities:
Public Programs
Open Houses
and great tips for family fun in the outdoors
 
 
    public programsopen houses
     
   

 

Season's Greetings!
Or  Small Moments of Great Wonder
A guide for big and little people to explore -together- the universe in their own backyard. 

  
 
     

 

Follow your children.  Together you will learn or relearn how to pay attention; how to kneel down in the grass; how to be idle and blessed; how to stroll through the field or your backyard; how to lead a wild and precious life (thank you to poet Mary Oliver).

We will explore the natural world with your child this summer at The Nature Place and we encourage you and your family to bring nature into your life.   Go out, get to know the world and season immediately around you and connect with your son or daughter in some very special, discovering ways.

 

  
     
     

 

We at The Nature Place have always believed that there is wonder, discovery, fun and connection (with the earth and with our children) in the outdoors, just beyond our doorstep. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says that "the beyond is not what is infinitely remote, but what is nearest at hand." Time and time again I have experienced the concept that what we most need is very close by, readily available to us. And in these stressful times we see a need for parents to: de-stress; get away from cell phones, computers, TV; breathe; be out in nature and reconnect with the earth and its seasons; get a little exercise; be with our children in an organic, simple and meaningful way; to live life 'in the now;' to revitalize our own sense of wonder and to know again what is really important. Our children and nature can certainly help lead us down the right path. The activities to be found within this section can be used as a guideline. They are simple, open-ended, leave room for further exploration, can be done in any amount of time you  have available and, generally, will not mean having to leave your backyard.

 

  
       
   

  

Season’s Greetings  … is an extraordinary way to bring parent and child  together, in an innovative, ‘organic’ and simple approach, by suggesting  activities which will  say ‘hello’ to winter, spring, summer and fall in your own backyard and neighborhood.

 

 Big ears in the morning

      Will hear the early bird’s calling.

     Take a slow walk with your child,  not too far – maybe the perimeters of your yard – before 9 a.m. on a sunny morning. Perhaps a Sun-day would be good for this. This will be just a listening walk – specifically listening for bird sounds. Listen near and far. Sit down to listen. Close your eyes sometimes. Take  Your  Time. This time of year you may hear some sounds you haven’t heard all winter up until now. Take the exact same walk once a week from now until we are really into spring. What’s happening? Don’t worry about the name of the bird making the sound. The bird certainly isn’t. Or,  you might want to call the bird by its sound or by what it sounds like it’s saying.

     So, what’s with the ‘big ears in the morning’ thing? Try this when listening:  face in the direction of the sound and make big ears by cupping each hand behind each ear, with each cupped hand just touching the outside rim of each ear. Guaranteed! This will work! You will hear much louder and better. Maybe you and your child can make your own pairs of ‘big ears’ which will be even better than your own cupped hands.

     Let us know – if you want – what you discover about birds and sounds as the weeks pass.

The Irish have it right with St. Patrick’s Day coming in the middle of March. This is the time for the Coming of the Green! Explorations outdoors now will reveal some of the tips, bits and pieces of green which herald the upcoming tidal wave of green coming soon to a yard or neighborhood near you.

It’s called spring.  

     Go out and have a Green Hunt. Warm up by testing your green finding skills indoors. Dressing in green might also prepare you for your outdoor excursion. Look high and low. Move away leaves. Look at branches. Look for nature’s green as well as person-made green. Find light green, dark green and all greens in-between. Get some paint charts from the paint department of  one of the large home stores. Try to find  outdoor greens that match the green shades on the chart.

     A green journal could be kept from now until the ‘high tide’ of life in June.

     Have fun with an all green meal after one of your outdoor hunts.

     Read Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Suess

                                                                                                                                                                       “What color is the wind?”

    This is a question a four-year old once asked me as we were outside watching the tree tops swing and sway in a light breeze. How would you have answered? 

    The winds of March are legendary so let’s go outside and meet a ‘living’ legend.

    ‘Psych’ up yourself and your son/daughter even before going out on a wind adventure. Try to blow each other down. Be the wind whirling, going around corners. Go to the library and read wind books.  Listen for the wind ‘talking’ outside different parts of your house. What’s the purpose of a ‘wind’-ow? Look out for environmental clues of a wind passing by. Why is passing wind funny? Is Moriah a fitting name for the wind? Draw the wind. Find out cool things about the wind, i.e. the highest speed ever recorded, the windiest spot on earth, where’s the nearest windmill., who was Don Quixote, is there wind in space and much, much more.

 Alright, let’s go out!

      Walk very slowly to feel the faintest breeze. You might want to make this into a whole slow-talking, slow-motion theatre production outdoors. During this slow walk,  take turns leading. Lay down flat on the ground, climb up high on something (very carefully), stand next to a building, turn slowly in a 360 circle, walk uphill, then downhill. In other words, ‘try out’ or feel the wind from various places, angles, heights, situations. As usual, be creative. If you’re having a problem with creative juices for the moment, let your child lead.

      Go fly a kite! Go to a store (with your child) and buy a kite,  or there are books at the library and most likely web sites which describe how to make one. Don’t underestimate this activity for fun, laughing and learning more about the wind. Just do it!  Carry the kite around in the trunk of your car so that you can stop at opportune times and places to take advantage of this windy season. Together, try to think of other places you would like to try kite flying. Can you touch a cloud?  Can you make two kites ‘kiss’ while in the air?

      On windy days its really cool to see litter, dirt or dry leaves blowing in whirlwinds or dancing over lawns, making the track of the wind visible to us.   Go outdoors on such days and find these ‘tracks’. You can even help by picking up a handful of dead, dried leaves, crumbling this mixture into tiny pieces within your hand, and then tossing this handful into some wind currents.

 

 Can’t Get Me!    Find places outdoors – on a windy day – where the wind cannot ‘get’ you. Crouch behind tree trunks, lay flat on the ground,  slink along the sides of buildings.

      Get a nice quilt or tarp, dress warmly and lay down in an open area to observe the cloud races overhead.

      After a windy day (or night) there are usually many branches, big and small, on the ground. Wind is nature’s pruning shears. Pick up these prunings and create some earth art. Let us know via our web site the kinds of things you have, together, created. You might want to try:  piling up the branches, log cabin style, around a skinny tree; sticking the branches into the ground to make a long winding sculpture; creating a written message on the ground for others to see; laying the branches out from smallest to biggest. Just play with the sticks. Look closely at some of them. How can you tell those that came from one particular tree? Can you match branch or twig with its tree?

 

Flower Showers  

    Most tree flowers are small and maybe not even recognizable as flowers. When you see a sort of color haze or bloom on trees and you look closer you will see that the buds have started to open and the tree flowers are blooming. Try to catch some of these flowers by laying out a big tarp, blanket or other such ‘catcher’ on the ground below the tree, or maybe not even directly below but underneath some of the far  reaching top branches. Be patient. Check your tarp every day. Put some of these flowers in a bowl of water as a centerpiece for your table. Collect flowers from different trees in this manner. Let us know the other kinds of things you can do with these small flowers and any other discoveries.

    During sunny, warmer days at this time of year the flying insects start to appear. Some are hardly noticeable as they take to the air. To get a better view you have to set the stage. Take some chairs outdoors or a quilt/blanket/tarp and make yourself comfortable. Do this when the sun starts to get lower in the sky, about 3 p.m. on. Look toward the west (where the sun is sinking lower) and look for insects “on the fly”.

 

A dandy (a la lion) ‘trick’
    By mid-May many of our dandelions have turned to those long-stemmed white balls of ‘fluff’ that many children call ‘wishes’ as they blow them from their round seed homes. Maybe you have noticed, if you’ve done any of the suggested dandelion explorations from before, that as the yellow flower changes to seeds that the stem elongates quite a bit. Can you figure out why? Well, now that your dandelions have long stems in their seed stage, you can try the following:  pick a dandelion from the bottom so that you  keep as much of the stem as possible. Carefully, gently and finely peel the stem back into long strips, almost as if you are peeling a banana. Find a puddle, a container of water you have already brought out, a pond or a stream and dunk the peeled back stem into the water. Leave it there for only 3-4 seconds. Take it out and watch!!