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Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
Frank Lloyd Wright
One of my earliest memories is of standing in front of an enormous snowbank and thinking that instead of going over it, I would go through it. I dug a snow tunnel from my neighbour's yard to my own.
I was about 4 years old and living in Northern Manitoba. We moved again, (this time to Northern Ontario), and I was lucky enough to have a stream that ran through my backyard, and a wood behind that in which feral cats roamed. Across the road there were maple trees that the french guy from down the street tapped, and boiled into syrup in his backyard. There were bears everywhere. The same neighbour was a hunter and I watched him skin a bear by a fire, beside that same little stream.
We had a sail boat and we would go out on the lake and pick wild blueberries before sleeping in our big blue canvas tent, or back on the boat. Later in my childhood my family moved to the West Coast where we sailed every summer and read books on the beach, swimming swimming swimming.
Nature has been an integral part of my life experience, something that I have taken for granted. My favorite and most cherished memories are of my family doing something outdoors, and there is usually the smell of the ocean or the forest associated with them. As I write I can smell the warmth of Fall in the arbutus. Nature is magical and beautiful and mysterious. It has the power to heal, and the power to destroy. It does both with equal equanimity.
Children have a natural inclination to enjoy being “out in nature” because it inherently satisfies their sense of wonder and curiosity. It is a bond that everyone deserves to make early in life; it has the power to make us more conscientious and compassionate adults. - Meredith Pritchard
Frank Lloyd Wright
One of my earliest memories is of standing in front of an enormous snowbank and thinking that instead of going over it, I would go through it. I dug a snow tunnel from my neighbour's yard to my own.
I was about 4 years old and living in Northern Manitoba. We moved again, (this time to Northern Ontario), and I was lucky enough to have a stream that ran through my backyard, and a wood behind that in which feral cats roamed. Across the road there were maple trees that the french guy from down the street tapped, and boiled into syrup in his backyard. There were bears everywhere. The same neighbour was a hunter and I watched him skin a bear by a fire, beside that same little stream.
We had a sail boat and we would go out on the lake and pick wild blueberries before sleeping in our big blue canvas tent, or back on the boat. Later in my childhood my family moved to the West Coast where we sailed every summer and read books on the beach, swimming swimming swimming.
Nature has been an integral part of my life experience, something that I have taken for granted. My favorite and most cherished memories are of my family doing something outdoors, and there is usually the smell of the ocean or the forest associated with them. As I write I can smell the warmth of Fall in the arbutus. Nature is magical and beautiful and mysterious. It has the power to heal, and the power to destroy. It does both with equal equanimity.
Children have a natural inclination to enjoy being “out in nature” because it inherently satisfies their sense of wonder and curiosity. It is a bond that everyone deserves to make early in life; it has the power to make us more conscientious and compassionate adults. - Meredith Pritchard
Shelter Building:
Goal: This can be done as an outdoor survivalist activity or it can used as an exciting teambuilding exercise.
Depending on your group size and composition, you can have a number of teams and either assign roles such as 'gatherer of supplies', 'in charge of design', etc., or let the kids work out the details on their own.
Building a shelter from natural materials found in the forest is something most kids will love.
You can always bring additional materials such as ropes or tarps depending on the type of forest or park you are playing in, but many local parks have forest floors with lots of fallen branches and plenty of other building materials.
Encourage youth to be respectful on the environment by discussing how to treat the plants and trees and other vegetation, and by specifying that they can't cut or break branches, pull up plants, or otherwise hurt nature.
They can build a lean to from sticks, a cocoon from leaves, or even build a snow cave in winter.
There are plenty of useful links out there but here are some straightforward ideas specifically for kids.
Telling them that they have only 'x' number of minutes will really up the ante!
Goal: This can be done as an outdoor survivalist activity or it can used as an exciting teambuilding exercise.
Depending on your group size and composition, you can have a number of teams and either assign roles such as 'gatherer of supplies', 'in charge of design', etc., or let the kids work out the details on their own.
Building a shelter from natural materials found in the forest is something most kids will love.
You can always bring additional materials such as ropes or tarps depending on the type of forest or park you are playing in, but many local parks have forest floors with lots of fallen branches and plenty of other building materials.
Encourage youth to be respectful on the environment by discussing how to treat the plants and trees and other vegetation, and by specifying that they can't cut or break branches, pull up plants, or otherwise hurt nature.
They can build a lean to from sticks, a cocoon from leaves, or even build a snow cave in winter.
There are plenty of useful links out there but here are some straightforward ideas specifically for kids.
Telling them that they have only 'x' number of minutes will really up the ante!
Photo by: http://www.stphilipsmarshnursery.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/P1010056.jpg