Nature Play At Home

Nature Play At Home

Adult nonfiction
When I flipped through Nancy Strineste's Nature Play at Home my
reaction was, "Oh, crap! Why wasn't this around when my kids were
little?" But I couldn't put the book down. The photographs were so
engaging and the ideas so inspiring I had to add it to my already tall
stack of to borrows. Also I realized I can still have fun with it.
You'll have to read this review through to the end to find out how.
When my kids were students at the Veazie Community School I
noticed an interesting dynamic take place at recess. The kids had a
state-of-the-art playground with equipment for climbing, swinging,
crawling through tunnels, hanging, and balancing--all situated on
injury preventing materials. This play area was surrounded by forests
which the kids were often reminded to stay out of. I bet you can
guess what I'm going to say. There were kids, including at least one
of mine, who crossed into no-child's-land whenever the teacher on duty
was occuppied with something other than guarding the border.
A lot of the teachers and parents had no idea why all the kids
weren't content to stay on their own perfect turf. I understood.
Strineste would have also. Kids know instinctly that they need time
in nature. It's fun. It boosts physical and psychological health and
lowers stress. It provides much needed challenges, the conquering of
which boosts self esteem. There's surprise, change, and
unpredictability. When play is unstructured and bossy adults like
coaches are out of the picture kids can take ownership, creating rules
and negotiating differences. How in the world can any mass
manufactured playground even begin to compete with that?
Strineste, who has backgrounds in both landscape design and
early childhood education, provides a wealth of ideas for teaming up
with Mother Nature to enhance children's optimal physical, emotional,
mental, and social health and development and promote creativity and
joie de vivre. There are projects, large and small, that can be done
independently for a home of collaboratively for a school, church, or
other larger entity. There are ideas that will fit in with just about
any budget. Instructions can be followed by those of us who aren't
architects or engineers. And there are so many gorgeous, inspiring
photographs. A few ideas that caught my eye are:
*insect hotels and hatching butterflies from caterpillars,
*turning downed tree parts into climbing areas,
*recycling stones or old bricks in a spiral shaped herb garden,
*creating all kinds of paths,
*playhouses with living roofs,
and *outside art in a wide range of mediums. And there are so many
more!
If you have kids to home or grands in need of quality time
Nature Play at Home is one of the best investments you can make. But
why limit the fun to kids? Don't at least a few of you want to jump
in leaves, wade in puddles, explore tide pools to see who lives there,
swing, build and sleep in an igloo, see what you can create with found
treasures...in other words, have fun?
Just saying.
As far why I'm going to buy my own copy of the book, my kids may
be grown, but I have a BFF whose son and daughter have only just begun.
On a purrrsonal note, I wrote this review on one of the most
bittersweet days of my life. It was raining, the drops drumming on
the roof. Joey and I were curled up together. When he slept I read
and wrote. When he was awake, he nuzzled and head rubbed me, sang his
purrr song, and gave me kitty kisses while I petted his soft, sturdy,
warm body, loving how his whole body vibrated as he purred. This was
a way of chilling on we'd treasured for years. But he had cancer. I
was happy that medicine and TLC were buying him good time, but sad
that the magic wouldn't last forever. Even now, months later, posting
this review brings tears to my eyes.
A great big shout out goes out to the best little cat in the world
whom I miss deeply and desperately.
jules hathaway



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