It's sneaking up on us. I know it is; I can smell it in the air.
Fall.
It's coming and I don't know about you, but I'm not quite ready for it.
The cooler mornings and evenings I've noted lately remind me that I really should spend more time outdoors before cocoon-worthy weather arrives. And since the back-to-school commercials are now broadcasting, that's your cue to savour the rest of summer before your little ones head back to class.
If you have trouble pulling your kids away from video games, TV, the Internet, their bed or the couch, try some of the following 15 outdoor activities to enjoy with your kids, excerpted from Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv.
1. Adopt a tree. (Go ahead, hug it.)
Pick an existing tree or plant a special one to help mark important family occasions -- a birth, death, or marriage. The Take a Child Outside campaign suggests taking pictures of the tree in its first snow or after a big windstorm. Make bark rubbings using crayons and paper; record what animals use the tree.
2. Revive old traditions.
Collect lightning bugs at dusk, release them at dawn. Make a leaf collection. Keep a terrarium or aquarium.
3. Dig a backyard pond or establish a water garden on a porch or patio. Many nurseries and online vendors sell aquatic plants that do well in shallow pots filled with pebbles and water. Add a goldfish or other small fish to keep mosquitoes from breeding in the water. Frogs and turtles are also welcome. A few duckweeds, which look something like miniature lily pads, will entice other creatures to come near.
4. Encourage your kids to go camping in the backyard. Buy them a tent or help them make a canvas tepee.
5. Be a cloudspotter; build a backyard weather station. No special shoes or drive to the soccer field is required for "clouding." A young person just needs a view of the sky and a guidebook.
Cirrostratus, cumulonimbus, or lenticularis, shaped like flying saucers, "come to remind us that the clouds are Nature's poetry, spoken in a whisper in the rarefied air between crest and crag," writes Gavin Pretor-Pinney in his wonderful book The Cloudspotter's Guide. To build a backyard weather station, read The Kid's Book of Weather Forecasting by Mark Breen, Kathleen Friestad, and Michael Kline.
6. Make "green hour" a new family tradition. The National Wildlife Federation recommends that parents give their kids a daily green hour, a time for unstructured play and interaction with the natural world. Even 15 minutes is a good start.
"Imagine a map with your home in the center. Draw ever-widening circles around it, each representing a successively older child's realm of experience," NWF suggests. "Whenever possible, encourage some independent exploration as your child develops new skills and greater confidence."
7. Take a hike.
With younger children, choose easier, shorter routes and prepare to stop often. Or be a stroller explorer. "If you have an infant or toddler, consider organizing a neighborhood stroller group that meets for weekly nature walks," suggests the National Audubon Society.
Involve your teen in planning hikes; prepare yourselves physically for hikes, and stay within your limits (start with short day hikes); keep pack weight down.
That's me, returning to my campsite after a short hike and scratching a mosquito bite on my forehead. Remember to cover up and wear insect repellent, friends.
8. Invent your own nature game.
One mother's suggestion: "We help our kids pay attention during longer hikes by playing ‘find 10 critters' -- mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, snails, other creatures. Finding a critter can also mean discovering footprints, mole holes, and other signs that an animal has passed by or lives there."
9. Go digital. Try wildlife photography -- appropriate for small children, teenagers, and adults. Digital cameras are portable, decreasingly expensive, and save money on film. True, wildlife photography can become costly, but in the beginning, using a small digital camera to take photos through one eyepiece of your binoculars can work well.
10. Encourage your kids to build a tree house, fort, or hut.
You can provide the raw materials, including sticks, boards, blankets, boxes, ropes, and nails, but it's best if kids are the architects and builders. The older the kids, the more complex the construction can be.
11. Plant a garden.
If your children are little, choose seeds large enough for them to handle and that mature quickly, including vegetables. Whether teenagers or toddlers, young gardeners can help feed the family, and if your community has a farmers' market, encourage them to sell their extra produce.
Alternatively, share it with the neighbors or donate it to a food bank. If you live in an urban neighborhood, create a high-rise garden. A landing, deck, terrace, or flat roof typically can accommodate several large pots, and even trees can thrive in containers if given proper care.
12. Go harvesting.
In past decades most children had family connections to farming—grandparents who still farmed, for instance. That connection can be echoed today by picking berries and other fruit or vegetables on commercial farms or in orchards open to the public. Consider joining a local food co-op; some invite the public to help with the harvest.
13. Read outside.
People who care about nature often mention nature books as important childhood influences. Reading stimulates the ecology of the imagination, especially if it’s done outside, say, in a tree house. Look for nature adventure books, particularly ones with young protagonists.
14. Go fish.
For kids five-years-old or younger, expect and encourage them to put the rod down and poke along the water’s edge. For older kids, start with the simplest techniques and gear. Bend down the barbs on the hooks for safety: this also makes it easier to release fish unharmed if you prefer not to keep the fish.
15. Collect stones.
Even the youngest children love gathering rocks, shells, and fossils. To polish stones, use an inexpensive lapidary machine—a rock tumbler. See Rock and Fossil Hunter by Ben Morgan.
Outdoor activities excerpted from Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. Excerpted with permission from Algonquin Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publishers.
Which outdoor activity on this list would you most like to do before summer's over?
