Let Them Play in Dirt!
Award-winning author Jennifer Ward explains how your child can benefit from outdoor activities as simple as playing in mud or watching the rain fall!
Commitment: I Love Dirt! 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature, a call to parents, educators and caregivers to spend time with children outdoors, features fifty-two activities to enjoy nature. What was your inspiration for writing this book?
Jennifer Ward: I love the outdoors and science. As a writer, I’ve published numerous picture books for children, all with a nature bent to them. Some are humorous, some are concept, but all relate to nature in some way, shape or form.
As such my uber agent, Stefanie Von Borstel from Full Circle Literary, gets the credit for encouraging me to branch into the nature & parenting book niche.
The inspiration for the book’s concept sprouted from the present global movement to help re-connect today’s children with nature, a la Richard Louv’s book, Last Child In the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. It’s a fact that children today are much less connected to nature and the outdoors than children a generation ago. I Love Dirt’s intent is to inspire young children and the adults in their lives to enjoy, explore and discover the nature at their finger tips, regardless of whether their outdoor space is urban or rural.
Commitment: How can children benefit from spending more time outdoors?
Jennifer: Great question! Studies have proven that when children have the opportunity to connect with nature and play outdoors, their cognitive development improves, their play is more imaginative and diverse, their motor fitness improves (coordination, balance, agility), awareness, reasoning and observation skills improve, stress in their lives is reduced, they develop independence and autonomy, their sense of wonder is enhanced (wonder is an important motivator for lifelong learning). These are just a few of the benefits obtained from connecting with the natural world.
Commitment: Will parents or caregivers benefit from spending more time outdoors, too?
Jennifer: The benefits gained from spending time in nature apply to everyone, regardless of age.
Commitment: Each activity features a “Help me Understand” box with a question and answer about nature related to that activity. Even adults can benefit from this information! Were these questions actually asked by children?
Jennifer: Thank you. Children are often filled with a sense of wonder. As such, I put my “teacher & mom hat” on and created those specific questions as I wrote the book. (I am a mom and a former educator.) Once I completed creating and writing an activity for the book, I would ask myself, ‘What type of question might a parent or teacher encounter from a child when facilitating this activity with a child?’ My hope in doing this was to create an additional level of inquiry and knowledge for readers.
Commitment: Why are children spending increasing amounts of time indoors?
Jennifer: There are numerous reasons why children are spending an increased amount of time indoors today:
- Parental fears regarding safety for their children often keep kids inside.
- Electronics (computers, video games) compete with time that could be spent outdoors.
- Kids today have less free time for unstructured playtime outdoors due to increased homework loads and structured, competitive sports.
-There’s less need for mandatory time outside in today’s generation, in general. As few as two generations ago, it wasn’t uncommon for a child’s grandparents to work the land in some way, shape or form, such as with farming – or even hanging laundry outside to dry. These family members lived and breathed the nuances of the land and seasons. Those days have all but vanished, for a variety of reasons. Parents serve as role models, though. When parents retreat indoors, it’s likely their child will follow.
-Kids today bike and walk less; parents drive them more.
-Many open “green” spaces implemented in planned, modern neighborhoods restrict children from playing on trees, near a water source (if there’s one), etc., for fear of injury and lawsuit.
Commitment: How can parents or caregivers encourage children to spend more time outdoors?
Jennifer: Parents can encourage children to spend time outdoors by serving as role models and getting outdoors themselves. Parents and caregivers can also facilitate the opportunity for outdoor exploration with children by affording children the time to play and explore outdoors – making time outdoors a priority and carving away time in the day (or night) to enjoy the nuances of nature. That is what I Love Dirt! is all about : ) Hopefully it will be used as a resource in this manner.
Commitment: The activities you suggest are basic, yet fun and interesting. An example is watching the rain as it rolls and drops from an umbrella to the ground. How did you come up with these great activities?
Jennifer: Thank you very much for calling them “great”. These are activities I’ve lived and experienced; they’re innate. I find joy in nature and observation. I always have, even as a child. So, as I was writing the book, if I sat outside at night and gazed at the silver lining on clouds as they passed by the moon, I would implement that experience into an activity. I also wanted to create a book that didn’t rely heavily on “materials” required for each activity. You’ll notice the activities often require simple things: the five senses, or items found in nature. I was hoping this approach would make the book more authentic and user friendly.
Commitment: Many of us take for granted much of what we experience in nature – rain, rocks, birds, etc. Did you write I Love Dirt! so children and adults will begin to examine and appreciate these things that we experience everyday?
Jennifer: Yes. Exactly. Take time to stop and smell the roses. Make time to observe and truly experience what’s around you.
Commitment: I Love Dirt! offers activities for all four seasons, in snow and in rain, day time and at night. Is there always something to learn from in nature?
Jennifer: Indeed! Try not to let lack of daylight or weather limit what element of wonder is just waiting to be experienced. Nature exists, 24-7, rain or shine. Where there is nature, there is an opportunity to expand one’s mind.
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Jennifer Ward is the award-winning author of wildly fun books for parents and children, including Way Out in the Desert, Somewhere in the Ocean, Over in the Garden, The Seed and the Giant Saguaro, The Little Creek, Forest Bright/Forest Night, There Was a Coyote Who Swallowed a Flea, Because You Are My Baby, Way Up in the Arctic, I Love Dirt! 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature, and the forthcoming titles, Let’s Go Outside! Outdoor Activities and Projects to Get You and Your Kids Closer to Nature (Trumpeter, Summer 2009), The Busy Tree (Marshall Cavendish, 2009), and There Was an Old Monkey Who Swallowed a Frog (Marshall Cavendish, 2010). Visit her on the Web at www.jenniferwardbooks.com. To purchase I Love Dirt: 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature, click here.
