Natural Playgrounds

I was happy to discover an article today confirming, yet again, that I have been right all along. Ever since I had my children, I have been integrating my garden to include child friendly spaces where my children can enjoy being in nature. I have always felt it was important for them to spend unstructured time enjoying plants and letting them make up games and toys the natural way. Just today I read an article in Energy Times (June 2012) stating that since “the average child in the US spends four to seven minutes in unstructured outdoor play a day-compared with more than seven hours in front of TV, computer and other screens”… “Parents and community leaders are building natural playgrounds with free form designs that incorporate plant material and other natural elements.”It also stated that researchers are finding that children grow bored less easily in a natural environment than they do on artificial play equipment. I find this to be true as well. Thanks to my parents, who allowed me total access to our beautiful gardens as a child, I have always known this. I am happy to hear the rest of America is finally catching on. I’m sure the “experts” will turn this into an expensive endeavor where the help and advice of other “experts” must be brought into the conversation, and parents must have their gardens mapped out for them by professional designers. I think our grandparents called it “wandering in the woods” and it used to be FREE! You can use your own God given instincts and have fun discovering what suits you and your family. Here are a few guidelines I have followed in the past. *Think ahead. Plan what areas you want for your adult space and decide what areas are OK for the kids to have control over. We don’t use fertilizers or pesticides in our back yard since we hate them anyway, but especially since our kids will be coming into contact with the plants and soil. You may want to refrain from using poisonous plants if you have very young children especially. *Remember that kids are messy and creative. Allow them an area they can dig or build in without making you feel stressed out. Make that area pleasant for them to be in by planting large colorful flowers nearby or providing a shade tree with boughs that scoop close to the ground providing a natural play house, climbing area or cave, and giving protection from summer’s heat. *Forego the sand box for a mud pit. Have you ever noticed that the only person who consistently uses the sand box is the neighbor’s cat? Kids would rather play in the mud. It holds its shape better. And if you happen to have clay soil, you are especially lucky. Just leave an area unplanted. If you don’t like how it looks, plant tall flowers in front of it as a screen. *Inter mingle flowers with vegetables. Flowers provide hours of enjoyment as your child studies them and uses them in their play while at the same time, who knows? Your kid might just pull up a carrot and start eating it! *Don’t worry about things looking perfect. I go ahead and let weeds grow sometimes. Heck, I’m busy washing all that mud out of their clothes! I’ll tidy things up more when they grow up and leave me all alone in this big old house. The important thing is to get enjoyment out of your garden. *If you live in a limited space, I encourage you to make the best of what you have. It might be worth your effort to get together with some others in your community to develop a shared natural space for all of your children to enjoy together. If you don’t know where to start, look up your local community garden and get involved with your kids in tow. You will notice right away that they will trail off in happy ecstasy as they discover interesting bugs or tasty berries. *Allow your garden to evolve. One of the fun things about having a garden is that you can sort of let your new ideas take shape every year. Each year can be different and fresh. That makes it hard to really make a mistake. Your variety of plants can start out very small. Maybe a few sun flowers and a strawberry plant. As your enthusiasm grows, so will your plant collection. It won’t take long for your children to catch on and find their own favorite plants to grow. I hope this article encourages you and your children to get outdoors and enjoy a garden, the very surrounding God gave man to begin with.

Simple Summer Fun With so much on my to do list this summer, I realized I need to help the boys find stimulating activities they can do on their own. Here are a few of the ideas I have used so far, Back yard camping! They really loved this one and it kept them occupied for several days. Just remember to put the tent up on the patio if you have sprinklers that come on at night! We used our tiny two man tent that is a snap to set up and small enough for the boys to handle on their own. Art, art and more art. I don’t know about your kids, but mine never get enough art in during the school year when math and English are priorities. I find the best way to do this while retaining sanity is to set up work stations outdoors and make sure it is cleaned up before a different art project is started. A kid can have hours of fun with an inexpensive water color set and a sketch book. Nature offers unlimited inspiration. I also give them those knitting looms and left over yarn. They go to town. Check my craft page for more ideas here. Good books. Mechanism was sent a set of Madeleine L’engle books from his grandma and Texas has finally gotten into the Magic Tree House series. I try to instigate a quiet reading hour sometime in the afternoon each day. Re-organizing. In the summer I let my boys re-organize their rooms. This year they decided to have their own rooms again so they have a lot of work to do. Don’t forget the obvious fun with a hose! Although I try to watch the water bill so we only use this option from time to time.