The uplifting experience with the kayak on the pond was in sharp contrast to the virtual kayaking the boys had tried about a week earlier. This time, we were visiting another set of friends. The boys had great time swimming in the backyard pool for hours. After a while, though, one of them asked to play the Wii. It isn’t something my boys get to do very often, so they were excited. One of the games they tried was Wii Kayaking. And my goodness, when I say the mood changed at this happy gathering, the mood CHANGED at this happy gathering. Neither of my sons could get the hang of kayaking with the remote control. When someone tried to show how to do it, my sons wouldn’t be coached. They weren’t open to getting help, they didn’t want to let go of the remote and risk losing their turn. One of my sons actually started crying, stomping has feet and yelling in frustration. It was an unattractive side of him, and I wasn’t happy. For him, the experience left him feeling inadequate, disappointed and extremely frustrated. The stress level in the room was high – much different from the relaxed atmosphere we’d had outside at the pool.

Real versus virtual. It has been a recurring theme this summer.  Back in June, a friend of mine told me a story about a presentation he attended.  The subject was technology in the early childhood classroom.  One of the presenters shared an anecdote to help underscore how fabulous our new handheld, digital technology is.

The story goes something like this: One day, a young toddler was running around the kitchen table holding an iPad. The child was saying, “Mommy: cow!” and his mother was able to quickly search and pull up a picture of a cow- and how wonderful it was that the child was able to see a real cow!

Did you catch that? A real cow.  Actually, no, that wasn’t a real cow. A real cow is a gorgeous and often smelly creature. It has smooth hair, a rough tongue, hard hooves and a tail that swats whatever might be in the way. What is especially distressing about the “real cow” story is that the presentation was given by the folks who are crafting the new National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) position statement on technology and young children. It appears that they are so head-over-heels in love with digital technology, and so immersed in the virtual world, that a digital picture of a cow on a small hand-held device has now become a “real cow”.  The current draft of the position statement includes this statement: Early childhood programs have an obligation to use technology to bridge the digital divide.  As I read that I cringe and can’t help but wonder… As we slide along the slippery slope between what is real and what is virtual, how will this affect our brain development? Our relationships with each other? Our relationship with nature?

How long until kayaking on an actual pond -with breezes blowing and frogs croaking – becomes a thing of the past? And what will we lose along the way?

In the Orion Magazine (September/October 2007) article Unplugged Schools, Lowell Monke wrote:

“The health of our children’s inner lives, their civic engagement, and their relationship with nature all would be improved if schools turned down the thermostat on that technologically overheated aspect of American culture. Schools dedicated to that task—we might call them ‘unplugged schools’—would identify the values associated with technological culture and design curricula and an environment focused on strengthening the human values at the other end of the scale.

“The most obvious thing schools can do in this regard is give children experiences with the real things toward which symbols are only dim pointers. Unless emotionally connected to some direct experience with the world, symbols reach kids as merely arbitrary bits of data. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but to a second grader who has held a squiggly nightcrawler in her hand, even the printed symbol “worm” resonates with far deeper meaning than a thousand pictures or a dozen Discovery Channel videos.”

I love that passage, because he states so beautifully what I often think about.  I feel the visceral connection that second grader has to the printed symbol “worm” and am thankful. I want my children, and my students, to have as many authentic experiences as possible before they are submerged in that virtual world.

(By the way, this is a picture of a real cow. This cow lives at The Farm School, in Athol, Massachusetts, and I took the photo on our annual trip with my students from Mission Hill School. Every student visits the farm every year, and the older students sleep over for a few nights. On the farm, they feed real cows, hold real chickens, cut real fire wood with real saws and experience a multitude of authentic experiences.)

Here are some related blog posts:

Is your baby’s iPad drool-proof?

“Me want daddy iPad!”

Radical Preschool

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As we walked, the “step only on moss game” got pretty tricky at some points, and didn’t last too long, while “racing to the next trail post” (to be the first to reach the next quarter mile marker) never got old. Dad is an expert at skipping stones across the lake, and finding great stones to skip was an adventure all in its own. Watching him toss the stones and counting the skips was also fun, though after countless tries the boys weren’t too successful (yet) at skipping their own stones. (For the record, I’m okay. I know the technique and can get a few hops out of the lightest, flattest stone. Their dad can make big rocks skip like nobody I’ve seen in a long time.)

We made it a few miles this weekend, and are determined to revisit the lake over the upcoming months – extending the walk each time – so that we can eventually make the trek all the way around the lake. (But I don’t think we’ll ever  be able to do that walk with only stepping on moss that whole time.)

Other family fun included playing with cousins, making origami ornaments for the Christmas tree and reading silly poems from our new Jack Prelutsky book (bought second hand from the library – it is in great condition and lots of fun). We did watch some shows together, too, a few episodes of  Mythbusters from the Discovery Channel. We don’t have TV per say, but we do get Netflix (DVDs borrowed through the mail) and watch some things together on the laptop. For us, it is a balance that works, and I like it because we totally control what we watch and when we watch it. (And best of all – with Netflix our shows don’t have commercials!) On Thursday morning as we baked muffins to bring to Thanksgiving dinner, I turned on my laptop to get a glimpse of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. For a few minutes, my sons were intrigued with the huge balloons: Pokemon, Kung Fu Penguin, etc. Soon though, one of my sons remarked in disbelief, “Are all these media-linked?!” I laughed and said, “Looks like it.” Needless to say, we turned off the computer and got back to muffin making  – with Aaron Copland on the radio.

How do you find balance in your life? How do you keep technology and media from taking over too much? How do you find ways to use technology for good? That is the topic I’ll be discussing (along with Kimberly Mullaney from WNET/Thirteen) at the Early Years Institute conference coming this Friday, December 3rd. The conference is titled “We Interrupt this Program: Playing and Learning in the Age of Hyper-Media” and it will be held in Islandia, New York (on Long Island). Lenore Skenazy, author of Free Range Kids will be on hand – and I am very much looking forward to hearing her again. She was once called “Americas Worst Mom” and her unique blend of realism and humor are not to be missed. Maybe I will see you there…

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Playing in the wind with the falling leaves reminded me of one of my favorite picture books – Gilberto and the Wind by Mary Hall Ets. First published in 1963, it is the delightful story of a young boy and his playmate, Wind. The pictures are beautiful and simple and the words are poetic:

I hear Wind whispering at the door. “You-ou-ou,” he whispers. “You-ou-ou-ou!” So I get my balloon, and I run out to play.

The idea that Gilberto can use his imagination to find countless ways to play with the wind takes on new meaning almost 50 years later in our current plugged-in world. Written before the avalanche of 24/7 cable TV, DVDs, video games, the Internet and smart phones…all of which trap children into spending time indoors and lull them into passive entertainment…this book becomes an enchanting tale that can reignite the inner need to play creatively. I’ve read Gilberto and the Wind to young children as an effective tool for expanding their ideas about imaginative play and inspiring ideas for outdoor play. Children connect with Gilberto who is clearly having appealing adventures with simple props and his vivid imagination:

When the grass is tall in the meadow Wind and I like to race. Wind runs ahead, then comes back and starts over. But he always wins, because he just runs over the top of the grass and I have to run through it and touch the ground with my feet.

For me, it is a wonderful idea that Gilberto has fun running with the wind – despite the fact that Wind always wins. Sometimes, though, it isn’t so fun. Just like with human friends:

When the leaves have fallen off the trees I like to sweep them into a pile. But then Wind comes along. And just to show that he can sweep without a broom, Wind scatters the leaves all about again. And he blows dirt in my face.

Every time I read this short little book, I find new life lessons and new ways to connect. Nature, imagination, friendship and play, as well as a wide range of emotions, are all themes within this timeless treasure. I recommend the book highly, and on this fall weekend, I recommend playing with the wind…

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Every student at Mission Hill’s K-8 school visits The Farm School every year. The younger students (K-3rd grade) visit for a day, and the older students (4th – 8th grade) spend three days and two nights. As the years pass, the students return over and over again, and they grow more connected to the farm. They become familiar with the farmers, the animals, the chores and the farmland. They figure out where they are most comfortable: is it holding a chicken in the chicken coop? Sweeping out the cow barn? Helping make dinner in the kitchen? They see how farm life varies with the seasons: times for planting and times for harvesting (and my favorite -  collecting sap for maple syrup in late winter). During Farm School days, electronic devices are left behind, and connecting with each other and nature becomes the focus.

These connections take place closer to home as well. Mission Hill School has schoolyard gardens, and is located right across the street from a community garden. Taking a quick walk with my students to visit our plot at the community garden was always a welcome excursion – a field trip easily taken and rich with authentic experiences. We could investigate our own plot, as well as other plots, and spend time observing and recording information about our chosen trees as they changed with the seasons.

Field trips have been on my mind this fall. Last week I went to great event hosted by “Teaching the Hudson Valley” and the Child Development Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. A group of us viewed When Learning Comes Naturally, an inspiring and informative look at the many ways nature spurs learning.  The teacher’s guide describes the learning this way, “In the outdoors children’s natural curiosity is activated. Each sense is stimulated, and living things, process of change, and mysteries to be solved are all around. As a result, learning of many kinds unfolds with ease in the moment, and with spontaneous excitement about creative exploration that can resonate for a lifetime.”

One of the clips features young elementary students wearing waders as they fish with nets in the Hudson River.  A scientist helps them hold and learn about the creatures they’ve caught.  After watching this, we got to talking about field trips – how field trips are becoming a thing of the past. High stakes testing, hours and weeks of the test prep, fear of law suits and  budget woes -  all these get in the way of the rich experience of field trips. Discovering and uncovering the natural spaces in your community is precisely what the makers of When Learning Comes Naturally recommend.

Unfortunately, many schools have turned to corporate sponsors for field trips…. to their stores. Check out this from the PETCO website:

“To further our commitment to animal welfare education, PETCO has teamed up with Field Trip Factory to proudly present Fur, Feathers & Fins™.

The Fur, Feathers & Fins program allows children to learn about the characteristics and habitats of fish, reptiles, birds and small animals. Lessons in science, math and geography come to life through this hands-on field trip. As students develop a respect for animals, they will also develop a greater sense of responsibility.

The FREE Fur, Feathers & Fins field trip will help children in grades K-8 develop and enhance skills in:

• Basic needs for animal care
• Animal habitats and characteristics
• Environmental issues and animal survival
• Animal respect
• Math, reading and science”

This field trip is FREE. Did you catch that? No charge. They even offer three options for acquiring free buses to get to their stores.  Ugh. In fact, the Field Trip Factory is making a business out of “uniting commerce, communities and classrooms” as well as cultivating brand loyalty.  Interested in learning about how to take care of the environment? The Field Trip Factory offers trips to Ralph’s grocery stores for that one.  I’m a big skeptic of these corporate sponsored field trips. I can’t help but wonder if the messages of consumerism outweigh any discoveries about animals and taking care of our environment.

Another option teachers are turning to are “Web Field Trips”. I first heard of this last year when my sons were in kindergarten.  One afternoon my son declared, “Mom, I went on a field trip today. ” “Great!” I replied enthusiastically. “Where did you go?! What was it about?” “Hermit crabs,” he answered as he reached into his backpack and pulled out a worksheet. The title was “Web Field Trip Log” and it is produced by the school book publisher Houghton-Mifflin.  He had visited a website about hermit crabs and filled in a worksheet about hermit crabs. Ugh. He hadn’t actually seen, touched, felt, heard or smelled a hermit crab. He wrote on the worksheet that he had learned they have a scientific name (but when I asked,  he couldn’t remember what that scientific name was). All in all, he wasn’t too impressed with the web field trip. Neither was I. And I also know that all kinds of administrative, budgetary and curricular constraints kept his teachers from taking more actual field trips. In our district you can’t even walk around the block or down the street without giving the district 90 days notice.

If you can’t bring your students to nature, how do you bring nature to your students? In kindergarten, my sons were lucky enough to plant bulbs in the fall and watch them emerge in the spring; watch an amaryllis grow to amazing heights; check out the birds who visited the bird feeder attached to their class window; raise caterpillars that became butterflies; raise chicks from eggs; and observe stubborn tadpoles that seem to never want to grow up to be frogs. All this from their own classroom.  Pretty wonderful stuff, to be sure. For many students, experiences in nature, even just within the walls of the classroom, can be enriching. Taking it one step further, and bringing students into nature, can bring the experience to whole new level. How can we help teachers keep the field in their “field trips”? One way is show parents, teachers, administrators and policy makers the powerful video When Learning Comes Naturally.

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Carved in sand on a slight incline, they made an initial track and then tested and re-tested their creation, perfecting  it as they went. When the ball only made it halfway down the track, one of the boys suggested, “Push it harder this time.” When the ball jumped the track, one declared, “Don’t worry! I know how to fix it!” I listened and watched the boys as they played.  They didn’t need me; they had plenty of their own ideas. Eventually, though, they came running over to ask me to join in their hypothesizing. “Mom, the ball smashed through the sand wall. So what do you think will happen if we make a cement wall with sand, rocks and water?”

Hypothesizing, testing out ideas, making observations and re-testing – all in the name of good fun – keeps children engaged. I always know their minds are engaged when I hear children say, “Let’s see what happens if I do this…” It’s right up there with hearing them say, “I have an idea!”

When they weren’t busy making the track in the sand, or riding their boogie boards in the waves, they were busy collecting rocks. “These are not usual rocks,” they explained. The boys had names for the categories of rocks they found:  “Clear rocks; flat-bottom rocks; multi-rocks” and even some uniquely shaped rocks, such as “The Heart Rock” and “The Maine Rock.”  I heard one boy sigh to himself, “This is a lot of work,” as he added his latest findings to their lines of rocks in the sand. Then he turned to me and professed, “Aren’t these some supremely cool rocks?”

Eventually, we had to go, and they decided to count the rocks.  The total: 112 in all, plus two shells and one piece of beach glass. “Mom, can we bring our collection home?” they asked. “Yes,” I replied.  “I suppose so.” “And can we have some egg cartons so we can organize them?”  “Of course!”

Collecting, sorting, categorizing, and admiring objects – especially those from nature – is another way to capture the minds of young children. The best thing about these beach endeavors is that the boys themselves decided what they were going to do, and then did it. For hours they were engaged and entertained in a beautiful blur of work and play. Were they learning? Absolutely.  Were they laughing and living? You bet.  Sometimes I wish life was always just a day at the beach.

Check out related posts:

A day at the beach – playing with the wind and other wonderful problems and

“I have and idea!”

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For one thing, you have have a flexible structure for them to work within. Setting the parameters, and giving choices within them, goes a long way in keeping everyone actively engaged. Second, you find materials and experiences that are open-ended and usually quite simple. Think natural materials such as water, sand and wooden blocks; and art materials such as  finger paints, paper, crayons, markers and clay. Nothing fancy or gimmicky here,  and definitely no batteries required.  Of course, what a 4 year-old and 13 year-old chose to do with blocks, sand, clay or finger paints will vary. Their methods, attention span and ability to coordinate their play with others will look very different, but isn’t that the beauty of open-ended materials? In these instances, the child is in charge of deciding the how and the what; the grown ups are there just to provide the materials, the time and the space.

“Quiet Time” in the afternoons gave us all a chance to relax, take a deep breath and entertain ourselves individually. Within the “Quiet Time” framework older campers read novels and wrote in their journals; younger campers read or looked at books and drew pictures; and our youngest campers took their afternoon nap. And singing was something we did daily together – with lots of songs that have become family favorites – including call and response songs which everyone (including the youngest non-readers) can enjoy. Our oldest camper even taught the rest of us a new song – now a favorite – which we will add to our growing songbook.

But there is one more crucial ingredient – interesting adults.  This year, we had a rotating list of aunts and uncle who came and shared their interests, time and talents with the kids. One of my brothers, a former art teacher, made paper with the campers. Another brother is a talented musician, and he joined us with his guitar for some of our singing sessions. My sister came one day and shared her talents in the kitchen to help our campers make lunch and snack for that day.  Launching rockets, starting a campfire, pitching a tent, telling a funny story, performing a skit…so many interesting grown ups spending time with the campers…sharing laughter and love and making memories.

So, how do you keep kids engaged? Open-ended and simple materials. Flexible structure. Quality time spent with interesting  and caring adults.  These make for a fantastic summer camp experience. And you know what…pretty great for school, too. I remember times in my second and third grade classroom at Mission Hill School – when things were feeling stressful and unproductive, and our insightful principal Deb Meier would say to me, “What about making the classroom feel more like summer camp?”  That question would help me tweak my routine, materials and attitude in a way that could get us back on track – and making it fun for all ages.

See a related post: KEVA planks – creating fun for everyone

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Natural playgrounds are a solution that speaks to problem-solving deficit disorder, a term coined by Diane Levin in 2003 and has written about (such as in So Sexy, So Soon); and also for nature-deficit disorder, which Richard Louv writes about in Last Child in the Woods. It seems a little sad, perhaps, that we’ve gotten to this place where we actually need designed spaces for kids to play with natural materials.  But there you have it: this is just what we need. Otherwise, for too many of our children, it just isn’t happening. Natural playgrounds remind me of the song “Water, Sand, Blocks and Clay” by Brady Rymer which I used to sing with my 5, 6 and 7 year olds,

“I will make a mountain tall and I will build a castle wall,

I will make a forest green and I will make a flowing stream,

’cause I got everything I want and everything I’ll ever need,

and I will play all day with my water, sand, blocks and clay…”

A great song to sing and a great way to play.

For a related story about nature play on playgrounds, see my previous post about the new book Playing for Keeps:Life and Learning on a Public School Playground by Deborah Meier, Beth Taylor and Brenda Engel.

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You see, back in May, Science Daily reported: “Exposure to specific bacteria in the environment, already believed to have antidepressant qualities, could increase learning behavior, according to research presented at the 110th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego.” Read the whole story here.

The researches found the effects were temporary, which means repeated exposure is good. Their research helps the growing  movement of outdoor classrooms, school yard gardens and bringing kids (and all of us) back outside. Personally, I know that when I am stressed, time outdoors always helps. I’ve known babies who would stop crying and fussing when they were brought outdoors.  I can relate because I am the same way. As a teacher, I always knew that time outside in nature was good for kids – especially as television, video games and the internet were keeping them more and more inside. I wrote more about nature and education in this article, “We Need More Sticks and Grass! We Need More Beauty!” .

Now, having evidence that being outside in nature can actually increase learning behavior – this is the icing on the cake. “This research suggests that M. vaccae may play a role in anxiety and learning in mammals,” says Matthews. “It is interesting to speculate that creating learning environments in schools that include time in the outdoors where M. vaccae is present may decrease anxiety and improve the ability to learn new tasks.”

Looking for more evidence that time spent outdoors is good for our children? Here’s more.  There’s a terrific new book just published by Teachers College Press. It is called  Playing for Keeps: Life and Learning on a Public School Playground, by Deborah Meier, Brenda S. Engel and Beth Taylor. The book comes at just the right time, when parents and teachers are looking for ways to convince principals and policy makers that recess is a necessary and valuable part of the school day. The book is written about the early years at the Mission Hill School in Boston, a school that I am proud to have helped start and then teach at for eleven years. The authors are all incredibly talented teachers and mentors, who helped me learn how to closely observe children and the deep importance of active learning. It is from these women that I learned much of what I know about being a good teacher.

From the introduction, “We invite readers to appreciate the life of the imagination on the playground, to see the energy children bring to exploring their social and physical surrounds, and to share with us the children’s delight in active learning.”

If your children are outside – playing, living, laughing, learning and getting dirty – these two new bodies of evidence help confirm what you already know. If your children are inside more than you like, and you are advocating for recess, struggling to bring  a garden to your school yard or working to bring more outdoor recreation spaces into your community, now you have two new powerful weapons in your arsenal. Excellent.

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