Category: Nature’s Classroom
Digging In The Dirt: Helping Kids Grow Their Own Garden
“ Might I,” quavered Mary, “might I have a bit of earth? Fans of “The Secret Garden” will recall orphaned Mary Lennox’s timid request of her uncle for space “to plant seeds in – to make things grow” on his huge English estate. What started with an ivy-covered door, revealed by a friendly robin to [...]
Creative Kids – Fall Nature Collections
On the eve of Fall, I am feeling the energy inside me turn from summer beach nights to warm and cozy. You can see it in the kids too. They begin the process of preparing for Winter, even foraging and storing things up like the animals in the forest. It’s fun to see the collections [...]
Top 10 Summertime Ways To Spark Kids Natural Creativity
Now that we have survived June-uary here on the West Coast and the kids have made their formal exit from the classroom there is only one thing to do – wonder how we are going to fill the next 12 weeks. Summertime can be a great break and one heck of a grind in terms [...]
Celebrating the Environmental Stewards of Tomorrow
Editor’s Note: Good Morning. Today, the folks from Comox Valley Land Trust have stopped by to talk about a wonderful program for kids who are the future stewards of the Earth. Check out this unique way of honoring the spirit of children who see the natural world and caring for it as their passion. Have [...]
Learning Crafts – The Nature Alphabet
When it comes to making learning more accessible around the home, there’s nothing that we’ve found more effective than making projects that take basic skills like alphabet and numbers and turning them into creative adventures. We’re homeschooling for kindergarten this year and one of the big things that needed to be in place is an [...]
Summer Kids Crafts – Pressing Flowers
The whole Comox Valley seems to be in bloom right now. I don’t know if it was the cold spring or the incredibly hot temperatures of the last week. But, that wow of color and scent is off the charts. For the tiny person, she’s in heaven searching for ways to talk me into picking [...]
Five Easy To Find, Wildly Delicious Edible Berries
Editor’s Note: Good morning. Jocie Ingram is here taking a look at the bounty of edible berries that are readily available to enjoy along the trail. Tasty. Here she is: On my daily morning stroll with the kids, something bright red and shiny caught my eye in the green shrubbery lining the trail. It was a perfect salmonberry, [...]
Your Grandma was an Environmentalist
Editor’s Note: Good morning! Gayles Bates is on site with a look at connecting your family to the past by incorporating a less disposable way of life. Here she is: The family is where we learn the values and beliefs that we either adapt as our own as we mature, or use as a launching pad [...]
Discovering Nature as a Young Naturalist
Editor’s Note: Good morning! Naturalist Jocie Ingram is here with a look at membership with the Young Naturalists’ Club… “A growing body of evidence confirms that when children spend time in nature they are healthier, happier and smarter.” – YNC web site My little ones are growing and changing so fast, and they are already [...]
Nature Journal – Finding Art In Nature With A Camera
Editor’s Note: Good morning. Jocie Ingram is on site today with a look at getting creative with a camera outdoors and tuning into your artistic side. She has some great tips for us. Enjoy. Here she is: I’ve always been drawn to the arts, be it visual art, music or literature. My other passion (which [...]
Nature Craft – Sticky, Easy, Framed Nature Collages
We are spring wildflower crazy around here these days. With the weather warming up and blossoms starting to bloom, afternoons are spent in the garden, wandering through our neighborhood park and returning home with pockets full of cool things we collected along the way. The problem with pockets full of anything is that, really, once [...]
Adventure Learning – Kids Need to Discover the Outdoors
Editor’s Note: If you missed out on Michelle Hughes’ post discussing the benefits of acupuncture during pregnancy, you can read it HERE. Now, here’s Jamie Black with her new column on the incredible learning that comes – at any age – from getting outside and getting into old skool adventures that change us, for the [...]
Found-Object Food Jar Terrariums
Science in a jar is something that scores me some serious cool points in the scientist in training universe. That’s especially true when it means that we can head out for a walk around our local park – or even the backyard – with express permission to pick up, handle, pack away and take home [...]
Backyard Craft – Butterfly Feeders
Editor’s Note: Good morning. We’ve got a fun craft for you this morning. But, it’s this afternoon that brings big news here at Our Big Earth. It’s a deliciously detailed dish comes with a month’s worth of community goodness, family fun of the foodie kind and the chance to win nearly $3,000 in tasty treats. [...]
Greening the Places that Children Play
Where Do The Children Play? O.K. I’m dating myself but I’m sure you’ve heard of the peace lovin singer/song writer Cat Stevens. And who hasn’t heard of Dr. Seuss? One of my favorites books of his is The Lorax, while published 38 years ago the environmental message still rings true today. What do the two [...]
Nature Craft – Flower Chains
Good morning! It’s that time of year where the big debate in our house over what flowers can and cannot be picked rages wild. Pretty much, our kiddo would prefer to pick every flower in sight. Wild, someone else’s, grandma’s favourite in the garden – it doesn’t matter. Flowers should be for picking, she believes. [...]
Reclaiming Our Childhood Connection to Nature
Editor’s Note: Good morning. Today, local mom and outdoor education advocate Barb Haffner is her to kick off her regular Nature Journals column on OBE. In my own experience, getting kids outside and letting them discover the natural world for themselves is a remarkably eye-opening experience. From the relationships that they develop with other children [...]
SPROUTS – Creating a Kids Garden
Another sunny day. Everyone loves it when warm days blow in. With all this good weather I can finally tackle the weeds that have been meandering in my garden beds and deadhead a few of the plants that escaped me in the Fall. It is so refreshing to be outside for hours these days – [...]
Life Cycles for Preschoolers
OK, so there are a couple realities to working on “learning” projects with a preschooler: 1. Attention span that generally amounts to nanoseconds 2. The constant reminder that 37-year-old mom obviously knows far less than 3.5-year-old child 3. Permanent mess syndrome 4. Sitting at the dining room table is the LAST thing on anyone’s mind [...]
Learning Trees With Leaf Hangings
There is a bit of a chill in the air and early last week, as I was packing us into the truck, I spotted red leaves. Then yellow, even a couple of orange beauties stood out against the bluer than blue sky. We’d been talking, the last couple of times out in the woods, about [...]
Studying Sunflowers
The sun this week has totally inspired us to dig out our science gear and plug into some Fall nature study projects in the form of those gorgeous sunflowers brightening patches all over town. Grandma is completely to blame for our love affair with sunflowers this year, as she planted a TON of them in [...]
A Home Museum with Shadow Boxes
Zoology, Botany and Forestry aren’t exactly in the vocabulary of the under-5 set. Yet, every time we hit the beach, the garden or the trail, science is following us around. Each pine cone or shell tucked in a tiny pocket reveals something significant about a place we’ve explored. (Yes, OK, I am total science nerd.) [...]
The Weather & Garden Synch Up
It’s true. Our Sprouts preschool garden experiment, well, died. Being entirely new at making anything grow, I had no plan for dealing with the record-cold April and the reality that frost always wins over veggies when push comes to shove. I’m a little embarrassed, mildly comforted by the fact that a whole whack of people [...]
The Birds and the Bees Pollinate Please
The rather frigid nature of our Spring this year may have you thinking twice about the season (although the shot above from local mom Krista gives me hope). But, even as we continue to scrape the occasional frost off of our windshields in the mornings, Mother Nature is waking her kiddos up from their long [...]
Sprouts – A Preschool Gardening Journal
There’s nothing like digging in the dirt. For weeks around our house the gardening hats and wooden bugs have been planted and re-planted on the living room floor. Her afternoon “gardening” sessions haven’t resulted in anything edible or sprouting, but one thing was clear – our daughter’s itch to get some soil between her toes [...]
Marine Habitats: A Natural Classroom
While I know that a January beach run may not be way up on your list when the skies are gray the temps are hovering around 0, this is the time of year (low tides) when a spectacular, mild, sunny day is the perfect time for exploring local shorelines. Getting out onto the beach with [...]
Watching the Salmon Run
When a friend mentioned the other day that she and her tiny person had hit Puntledge Park to check out the total coolness that is the Fall salmon run I knew we were headed out there as soon as we left her house. Being a landlubber myself, the only salmon I’d ever seen run were [...]
Making Bats for Spooky Learning
When I sent away for the Canadian Wildlife Federation’s free Wild About Bats package a few months ago, I sincerely wondered what I would ever do with it. The tiny person was not in any way interested in flying spooky creatures at that point and, much like the snake one I also sent away for, [...]
Ecology in Action – Frogwatching
Earlier this Spring our daughter and I were wandering through the Lazo Marsh when we heard a sound that made us jump for joy. Right along Lazo Road, the song of the frogs could not be denied – and they were everywhere. We were so excited to check out these princes incognito and spent an [...]
