Children in Nature March 2018
There is nothing more mercurial than March weather in the Northeast, except maybe a class of twenty 5,6 and 7 year olds, learning about themselves and each other while exploring the world at their own pace and temperament. This year two full moons bookend the month of March, the Worm Moon on March 1st and the Sap Moon on March 31. March is a time for rebirth, awakening, fresh starts, renewal, the big thaw! As the days get longer and the earth gets warmer, the soil thaws and worms make their way to the surface. Be on the look out for worm castings, the little balls and piles of worm “poop” that worms create as they eat their way through the soil. My kids get very excited about this because it means they will be turning over logs and rocks in no time, rediscovering the microcosm of invertebrates that is so fascinating to them. That the odd piles of dirt are technically poop poses a problem to the fastidious natures of some kids (some adults too), but an adventurous avant-garde group of explorers leads the way to making closer connections to nature and the earth. Children, just by the fact that they are closer to the ground, tend to be more interested in, and aware of, what is directly underfoot.
If you want to go on an exciting nature quest be on the look out for the first signs of spring. The aforementioned worm castings are just one sure sign that spring is beginning. Other things to look for are new plant life, green shoots, snowdrops and crocuses, hepatica and the first flowers of spring; thawing earth, warm breezes, surging rivers filled with snow melt; new bird songs and calls as robins, turkey vultures, red winged blackbirds, and mourning doves return from their southerly migrations; and various animal sightings or signs, mostly mammals, as they wake up from a deep sleep (raccoons, skunks, woodchucks, rabbits and chipmunks) or take advantage of the warming weather, (fishers, minks, bobcats, field mice) to look for new sources of food and potential mating partners.
And then there will be another snow storm and everybody has to readjust their plans. Kids seem especially connected to these burgeoning signs of spring and the vicissitudes of March. They yearn to be outside and both take advantage of the last days of winter, and spring into action as nature wakes, yawns, stretches and comes back to life. Spring fever is both inside the child’s body and animating the landscape of the child’s yearnings and desire. This is a good example of how children can lead the way for us jaded, alienated adults. They are already closer to the rhythms and natural source of growth and development in the natural world than adults who have become estranged from their bodies and the earth.
The vernal equinox is on March 20. This is when the day and night are roughly the same length of time.
While we certainly spend time looking at pictures of the earth’s revolution around the sun, I spend more time exploring how different cultures celebrate the spring equinox in different ways. The Chinese celebrate the Chinese New Year, Persians and modern day Iranians celebrate No Ruiz, Russians celebrate Maslenitsa or Pancake Week, Jewish people celebrate Passover, the European pagans celebrated a festival for the goddess of springtime, named Eostre, and Christians celebrate Easter. Mayan architects and astronomers designed a pyramid called El Castillo that is constructed in such a way that on the spring equinox as the sun hits the pyramid, a 100 foot long snake appears to slither down the pyramid. The Cree Indians ate the first berries that were available and were confident that with the appearance of those berries, the bears would soon be coming out of hibernation and spring would be well on its way.
People in India celebrate Holi, the festival of colors. I used the Holi festival with the kids at Leila Day to connect the burst of colors that come in Spring with the traditional way of gathering flowers of different colors to create different pigmented powders. These powders are used to celebrate “fresh starts, friendship, family, forgiveness and the triumph of good over evil.” I ordered the different colored pigments from Amazon and read the “festival of Colors” by Kabila Sehgal and Surishtha Sehgal. We went outside and the kids chose either to color their own faces or festoon each other’s faces with the powder. We then made patterns with the colors in the new fallen snow. In celebrating the coming of spring in such a playful, sensuous way the children had an amazing amount of fun, and teachers and children alike had a symbolic “springboard” into more extended inquiry projects and activities around springtime.
Three themes emerge from this cross-cultural comparison of various ways of celebrating the vernal equinox. One, that it is a time of new beginnings, fresh starts, and individual and collective forms of rebirth. Two that gardeners, farmers, (teachers and their students), know that it is now time to start planting seeds and planning their gardens (start planning your gardens, farm visits and maybe a new plant to forage). And finally, I would argue that Spring is a time of radical openness to the new, a time to put aside our preconceptions of what is going on and experience directly through all our senses the wonder, enthusiasm, energy, vitality and beauty of Spring as the earth comes back to life.
Our March exploration of the outdoors would be incomplete if we didn’t mention skunk cabbage and sugar maple trees. Skunk cabbage is one of the first flowers to emerge in any wetlands and is a kid favorite. Its pungent aroma, fast growing giant leaves, and weird purple-brown-green flowers both attract and repel kids.
http://natureontheedgenyc.blogspot.com/2011/03/can-you-smell-it-skunk-cabbage-has.html
Near the end of March the sap starts to flow in all trees bringing nutrients to the buds that will soon be bursting with sticky green leaves. The movement of sap up the tree requires cold nights and warm days, once again requires the subtle extremes that March provides. Sugar maples produce the sap that we turn into maple syrup. Common Ground, one of the premier environmental education hubs in Connecticut, New England and the Northeast hosts a fantastic Maple Syrup Festival on March 24 between 10 and 1. Check out your local area for places and ways to experience the process of making maple syrup first hand.
Know for sure that just as the sap is rising in the trees, energy, enthusiasm, and excitement are rising up in the children, and it is up to us as parents, caretakers and teachers to tap into this enthusiasm as we fall in love with the outdoors and the natural world all over again.
