January, 2018
It’s cold this week where I live in New Haven Connecticut, and even colder in Portland Maine where I was visiting. In the teens and single digits. We try to get outside everyday at the school where I work, except when there is a wind advisory ( falling branches do pose a hazard), thunder and lightning, and extreme cold. When you make a concerted effort to get outside regularly, learning opportunities abound. Outdoor education breaks down the separation between self and world. Claire Thompson reminds us that:
“[n]ature and people are simply part of one another. If we bring our awareness to what is around us and within us, this becomes obvious. We cannot be considered separate. The natural world is at the very heart of our being. If we are willing to listen and pay attention to nature, we will begin to recognize our innate sense of connection and belonging. Mindfulness of the natural world will probably be one of the deepest experiences and our greatest opportunities to feel truly alive.”
There are many goings on in January that are worthy of our attention. The single most important thing to do consistently in outdoor education is…to get outside, consistently, regularly and for big chunks of time. We spend our time outside in different ways but I would break it down into five different categories: walking; playing; building and making things; sensing, observing, exploring, experiencing; and doing stuff (gardening, fishing, foraging, collecting, tracking, etc.) Where we walk, how we play, what we make, explore and do is determined by the time of year, the natural rhythms of the seasons and specific events that are going on outside in the world.
Phenology is the term used to describe “the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, especially in relation to plant and animal life.” There are several excellent books that cover these phenological changes in detail for New England which I will share below. I hope readers will share more resources in the comments section. That being said, “you don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.” Get outside and see for yourself what is going on. GO ON A WALK. This imperative follows from the overarching philosophy to reconnect with the natural world, to align ourselves more closely and intimately with the rhythms of nature, and to participate in the abundance of the nature by cultivating a humble respect and curiosity for how animals and plants survive and thrive during winter on this good earth.
Mary Holland, in her book Naturally Curious, describes the month of January as one of “endurance.” Many of the animals have migrated, hibernated or have gone into a dormant, sleep a lot eat/a little, mode to deal with the winter cold. Some animals however are still out and about. January is an excellent time to explore animal signs and adaptations, from tracks in the snow, scat on a rock, and bark chewing, to fluffed up feathers and deer “yards.” The frantic activity of the grey squirrels and the cantankerous chatting of the blue jays remind us that some animals don’t slow down in the winter. Get outside, walk around, and get a lay of the land . You will be surprised by what pops up. Just today I was walking with a class of 4 and 5 year olds and we were rewarded with the spectacular sight of two pileated woodpeckers snacking on a stockpile of seeds.
I was born in the city, was fortunate to spend some formative years in the country living by a river, and now live in a small city, New Haven, Connecticut. I am in walking distance from East Rock Park which has some woods, the Mill River, and the East Rock escarpment towering overhead (it looks like a mountain to me!)
The school where I work, Leila Day Nursery, is right next to East Rock. Common Ground Summer Camp, where I work in the summer, is built in and around West Rock Ridge State Park. This is all to say that I am committed to opening up the natural world to city kids, getting kids outdoors, out from behind their screens, out of their apartments, houses, buildings and schools, and into the thickets of what is really going on. So if what you can manage is a walk around the block to a grocery store or a small city park do it. Then go further afield and explore what your home, school, village, town, city has to offer in terms of “natural” and “wild” places and spaces. ( If you have a backyard or a nearby vacant lot that serves as an “edge” environment don’t overlook the possibilities right at hand). My exhortation to you is to help your children become familiar with the nature all around them. As you walk, wonder as you wander, asking questions, catching your children’s questions, pointing things out that draw your attention, following the child’s curiosity and seeing where it takes you. Remember as John Dewey was wont to say, “the having of an experience” is what is important. This process requires a delicate balance between approaching your walk with open, “beginner’s” eyes, and also having some sense of what you are looking for. Here is a winter ecology scavenger hunt list that I lifted from the Maine Audubon Society. Add some items of your own. I did.
Two kinds of tracks made by humans
Feather or fur
Something an animal has gnawed
Berries
Three different shaped weeds or seeds
Animal tunnels, burrows or homes
Something or somewhere warm
A place where a hungry owl might perch
Something with thorns
A dining room table for a squirrel ( scattered, chewed acorns)
Evidence of humans
Evergreen needles
A bird that is winter resident
A place with snow cover
Different kinds of snow
A mushroom
Moss
Icicles
Animal scratches
Something green
Two different animal track patterns
An insect home for winter
Animal smells
Bare trees that look like something else
Human garbage
This scavenger hunt can be used in conjunction with a field guide like Donald Stokes’s, A Guide to Nature in Winter. You can use the categories in the book to expand inquiries into areas that your children are particularly interested in like: winter weeds, snow and ice, wintering deciduous trees, evidence of insects, winter birds and abandoned nests, winter mushrooms, animal tracks and signs, and woodland evergreen trees and plants. The important thing to remember is the experience of walking and the walk itself.
There are four basic types of walks that can be mixed to match one’s purposes and personalities. One is a destination hike where you aim to reach a specific destination: a bridge, a waterfall, the river, the top of the hill, or a special place in the woods. The focus is on getting there and then checking out the destination. A second type of walk is where you have a specific focus like mushrooms, or birds, or walking silently and you concentrate on that particular thing. A third type of walk is a “wonder as you wander” ramble where you take your time and and stop and pursue whatever catches your fancy and tickles your curiosity. The fourth type of walk is what I call a get yer ya yas out walk where the kids can run, skip, dawdle, jump, climb and gallivant all over the varied landscapes that nature provides and do whatever their little hearts desire within the realm of commonsense and safety. All four kinds of walks have a purpose and a place in any outdoor curriculum and pose different challenges and opportunities. Any particular trek is likely to be a combination of different kinds of walks. The important thing to do is walk, because kids and teachers get “better” at it, and get more out of it, the more they get used to walking as a basic way of exploring the world.
I often see see grown ups walking with children, and they are either dragging them along or reigning them in. There are safety considerations
(cars are always more dangerous than anything in the woods), and the larger the group the more difficult it is to find a pace suitable for everyone, but simply find a balance between being a pied piper and leading everybody off on an adventure, and being a faithful caretaker, making sure everybody is safe and having a good time. So get outside, take some walks and become closer to the plants, trees, animals and earth. Let’s learn the lay of the land, its contours and textures. Lets discover favorite places and act on our wild curiosity. Let’s foster deep and engaging relationships with specific places, animals and plants. Becoming closer with the animals and plants that we share the earth with is a fundamental way of affirming our intertwined destinies, welfare and wellbeing. Finally, lets revel in and learn from our beautiful bodies: our brains and nerves, our stomach, our heart, our lungs, our muscles and skeletons, our senses, our embodied ability to move and to feel, our animal souls. Let us, with Thoreau, saunter through the woods and meadows, farms and fields, hills and valleys, and follow the river around the bend, and though we may have come as visitors, find ourselves at home in the natural places, outside.
Bibliography
Naturally Curious: A Photographic Field Guide and Month-by-Month Journey through the Fields, Woods, and Marshes of New England by Mary Holland
A Field Guide to Your Own Backyard by John Hanson Mitchell
Nature’s Events: A Notebook of the Unfolding Seasons by John Serrao
A Guide to Nature in Winter: Northeast and North Central North America by Donald Stokes
The Nature Connection: An Outdoor Workbook for Kids, Families and Classrooms by Claire Walker Leslie
