Spring Is In The Air!

Spring is officially here!!

Time to get out in the fresh air and breath deeply.

Time to go on  adventures, move our stiff bodies and learn about the wonders of nature!

At the end of the summer, when fall sets in and things begin to 'tuck in' for the winter, fifty-eight degrees seems so chilly. When Spring arrives, after months of being frozen in place, Fifty-eight degrees is gloriously warm - I am ready to take off my shoes and run barefoot through the newly emerging grass! Spring helps us to appreciate all of the best that the reborn world has to offer. Spring is the best opportunity to discover all of the hidden treasures you forgot were to be found if only you left the beaten path.

Yesterday, being such a perfect day, was one of those days that we discovered some treasure, and that treasure was the life inside my own children's imagination. We went for a walk in the woods behind our library (shout out to every local library everywhere!). In these woods we found a creek with a fallen tree that created a primitive bridge! We balanced our way across, trekked on in search of who knows what, found a ancient car, gave ourselves 'adventurer' names (mine is Sarah Dragonmaster, btw) and bivouacked deep in the wilderness so we would have shelter from unpleasant weather (of which there was none, lol).

The value of such a day is beyond measure. There was the physical benefit of the hike - balancing, walking, lifting heavy branches to build our shelter - but there was something even better than that: JOY.

My boys were loving being out in the natural world. They were finding flowers and thorns and butterflies and green algae. They were learning and thinking and solving problems. They were making up stories and playing pretend. They didn't have one thought for phones or video games. They were anxious to be able to go back and bury a treasure box in our fort.

Getting our kids out in Nature doesn't have to be complicated. Even when our family lived in the inner city there were places to go that took you into "the wild". Most cities have an arboretum or a public garden. A short drive will often take you outside the city to where green spaces are more prevalent. Even a picnic blanket on a small patch of grass close to home has it's merit - you can take your books (or Adventure Letter) outside to read. Give your child a fork and spoon and allow them to dig around in the grass and dirt to find what might be living there. Study what you find.

We sometimes take for granted how fortunate many of us are in having such ready access to the unadulterated world of Nature. I used to work at a camp that would host week-long learning sessions for children who spent little no time outside of the concrete jungle. The camp would bring the kids on paths through the woods and to study micro habitats at the edge of a lake. The would look at bugs and plants and lifecycles. It was a wonderful program but in a way it was also sad because these kids had never experienced nature up close until then. When we have the ability to expose our children to natural world we should not neglect it.

Spring is officially here!!

Time to get out in the fresh air and breath deeply.

Time to go on  adventures, move our stiff bodies and learn about the wonders of nature!