In Home Education, Charlotte Mason famously (or perhaps infamously) says that children should spend four to six hours outside every day – a bit less in winter. Time and time again, I have seen parents respond in one of two ways. Some panic at the thought that they are failing their children by not meeting…
As I mentioned last week, we’ve moved house recently. The backyard in our former home was mostly a brick patio, with a patch of grass roughly the size of a postage stamp. Our new garden isn’t enormous (especially by American standards). However, there is plenty of room for the boys to run, play, and enjoy…
We are getting ready to move! We’ll be going from a tiny yard to a decent-sized garden, and I’m so excited. One of the things I’m looking forward to is creating a mud kitchen for the boys. Sensory, open-ended, loose parts play. It’s going to be awesome! I’ve been gathering ideas for a while, and here are…
I mentioned briefly last week that Carl and I took the boys camping for two nights in the Lake District. Before our trip, I spent some time online, looking for a place to take the kids for a day out. When I came across the WildPlay trail at Whinlatter Forest, I thought it looked perfect. As…
In the time it took for me to say hi to my friend at the playground, my 2.5 year old scaled a steep hill and was halfway up a ladder to a climbing structure intended for kids three times his age. (The ladder was a bit like this one, but much taller.) By the time…
I’ve mentioned before that I’m not always the best person at getting outside, despite the many reasons to do so. Part of this is because it is simply inconvenient. Our backyard is the size of a postage stamp. We have a patch of grass that is maybe six by six feet, and that’s being generous. We have…
[sc name=”Disclosure”] Outdoor Learning in the Early Years by Helen Bilton takes a broad look at outdoor play in early years settings (affiliate link). Bilton’s book starts from the increasingly familiar premise that outdoor play is quite often neglected: Outdoor play spaces are often either small or non-existent, exclusively tarmacked hard surfaces with few natural elements….
[sc name=”Disclosure”] Taking risks is a key part of growing up, one that many kids these days are missing out on. They are never out of sight from an adult, they are plucked from the top of playground equipment before they have a chance to think about how to get down, they certainly don’t climb…
My relationship with the outdoors, historically, is mixed. I remember enjoying some outside activities when I was growing up in Indiana. As a family, we went hiking in state parks and wandered to the creek near our house. These are fond memories, but I have even more memories of sluggish, sweaty summers of band camp, snow…
Hi, I’m Amy, and I have seen one too many pins on Pinterest with home-school curriculums for preschoolers that center on worksheets, complicated activities, and parent-directed teaching. Learning in the early years is near and dear to my heart. When I started this blog, my husband, Carl, and I had two little boys, N. age 2…