Even if you’ve got your children excited about going on a day hike, you have to get them to the trailhead, probably in a motor vehicle. Sometimes those drives to a national forest, nature preserve, or state park can be long. You can keep kids’ spirits up by playing games or doing activities on the drive there. One such activity is having kids learn how to read maps by navigating for you.

They can provide instructions about when and which way to turn, for example, by reading a road…

Generally, exploring and discovery is enough for kids, but sometimes even they can grow bored with that and become restless. Remember that they naturally have shorter attention spans than adults.

Fortunately, there are lots of tried and true activities you can do on the trail that’ll keep kids from getting bored. Among them is Whichever Way the Wind Blows.

If there is a slight breeze, have your children identify which way the wind is blowing. Then have them identify…

I met yesterday with my small group of Meeker Courtyard Naturalists for an hour after school. After some instruction on how to take field notes, we went outside and walked around the building.



We spotted a bird on a utility wire near the trash dumpster, singing beautifully. I knew it was a male House Finch, but I withheld that info so the students would focus on describing the bird, taking notes,…

Three new books about kids and the outdoors should interest readers of C&N Connect.  The titles are below, and the brief reviews are published in my June Lifestyle Column at BookPage.com: Come Out and Play).

The Book of Gardening Projects for Kids

by Whitney Cohen and John Fisher

(Timber Press, $19.95, 264 pages, ISBN 9781604692457, pub. date May…

Generally, exploring and discovery is enough for kids, but sometimes even they can grow bored with that and become restless. Remember that they naturally have shorter attention spans than adults.



Fortunately, there are lots of tried and true activities you can do on the trail that’ll keep kids from getting bored. Among them is Hungry, Hungry Ants.



Once you spot an ant hill, see if its inhabitants have a trail of workers leading away from their…

Most children will find fun the idea of a hike and explore. Still, kids can be fickle creatures. Their lack of knowledge and experience in the world often makes them cautious about suggested activities. And in today’s video game-oriented, 300-cable channel, Internet-connected world, some kids may be reluctant – or even afraid – to get outside.



You want to sway kids to at least entertain the notion that a hike might be fun. If they hit the trail thinking a long stretch of…

Generally, exploring and discovery is enough for kids, but sometimes even they can grow bored with that and become restless. Remember that they naturally have shorter attention spans than adults.



Fortunately, there are lots of tried and true activities you can do on the trail that’ll keep kids from getting bored. Among them is "Indentifying Animals.

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Bring a kid-friendly field guide and see how many animals you can identify on the trail. Most of the animals you…

follow this link to register for the 2012 Nature Summit! See you there!

http://www.naturesummitmb.com/registration/

Today makes one week since I heard Richard Louv address the audience members at the                                                   Catoctin Forest Alliance Conference (Thurmont, MD).  His words of "self-replicating social change" are as                   alive as nature itself.  I produce "Conservation Kids" to tell the stories of natural-resource areas and                               capture living history.

I have taken Mr. Louv's advice of having a movement that "paints a world…

Playground Professionals has just launched The Play and Playground News Center – A Wonderful Play and Playground Resource.

Check it out at http://www.playgroundprofessionals.com/.

This will be a place you will want to revisit often!

We are lucky enough to live on a spectacular Maine island that is home to a little one-room schoolhouse, a gaggle of terrific kids, and a…

Thank you, Sir...  You engaged our children and will forever cause people around the world to see the importance of

exploring their world.

making mistakes.

climbing a hill.

facing their fears.

screaming.

smiling.

laughing.

sighing.

having "nakie" time.

crying.

finding magic in a special place.

feeling sad.

finding a way to express themselves.

a warm dinner at the end of the day.

a…

In the Nature as Therapy group of CN&N Christine Hohlbaum notes in her Nature as Healer comment:  "It is my understanding (and my own experience) that nature has many healing properties. . . For instance, it has been scientifically proven that taking a walk in the forest can…

I am very fortunate to live in the San Francisco Bay region of northern California. When not traveling, I head out several times a week and hike up into the hilly Marin Headlands, an extensive protected area that few would hesitate to call “nature.” The evergreen shrubs and patchy grasslands afford spectacular coastal vistas and erupt into a kaleidoscope of wildflowers come springtime. The plentiful animal spottings include red-tailed hawks, coyote, alligator lizards, quail, mule deer,…

If you have enjoyed a walk around your neighborhood, and certainly if you have participated in civic discussions about the way your neighborhood should grow and be planned, then there is a good chance that you, or your process, were influenced by Jane Jacobs.…

In celebration of Space Day & the Supermoon (coming on May 5th), I pulled together a post of fun astronomy activities and books for kids & families.  Just one more way to encourage some outdoor time!

The nature of mud.

Mud was mud for touching and that’s just what you’ll do.One of these days this mud is going to be smeared all over you. Mud blurs the lines between the definition of a solid and a liquid. It’s half way between a solid and a liquid so it’s not one or the other, it’s both .It’s also clean and dirty at the same time because people pay to have mud facials and mud baths to draw out toxins to clean out their pores, exfoliate and detoxify…