Happy Holidays! Even though the weather is getting colder and wetter, winter is still a good time to get outside and let your child explore. This is one of my favorite times of year to visit Spring Lake, when the lake is still and peaceful, the trees are colors of every hue, and migrating birds come back to settle in for the winter. Especially as the pace starts to pick up for the holidays and days start getting more hectic, having some time outside can help ease stress and revive the spirit of the holidays.

As the year winds down I am also already busy planning for next year and will have dates of upcoming sessions posted on www.naturetots.com, as well as in this newsletter, soon. Thank you also to those of you who have already returned the survey I sent out, in hope of making Nature Tots better fit your child’s interests.

My first session of 2009 will begin March 3rd with a new session called “What Animal did That?” where children will learn to identify signs of animal activity and learn about the animals that made them. Various animal species will be covered, and may include insects and spiders, birds, reptiles and amphibians, and mammals.

A few other changes I’ll be trying out in 2009 are 4-week class sessions which I believe might work better for a lot of people, as well as some different locations, including one in Rohnert Park.

Hope you have a happy holiday season and hope to see you outdoors!

Stephanie Derammelaere

During the holiday season it’s great to have your child participate in the festivities and introduce them to the art of giving. Even young children can have a lot of fun by making gifts for their families – especially with a little help from Mother Nature. Here are a few ideas:

• Sachets (a project we did during the “smelling” class of “Our Senses” Nature Tots session!) – fill a small mesh bag with something nice-smelling, like dried lavender, potpourri, or you could make a holiday-scented sachet using cinnamon sticks, dried orange rind, and cloves. Pre-made bags in a variety of colors can be purchased at a craft store, making it easy for little fingers to fill and pull the top together. Cut a 3×5 index card in half and let your child decorate it with markers and stickers. Punch a hole in one corner and tie to the sachet for a little gift tag.
• Leaf bookmark – press some pretty autumn leaves and then either laminate, or stick between two sheets of contact paper and cut into a bookmark shape.
• Leaf stencil note cards – paint the backs of various leaves and press onto blank note cards so it leaves an imprint. Include a few with matching-sized envelopes for a pretty and practical gift.
• Pomanders – Start with some oranges, lemons or limes and some whole cloves. If you want to hang the pomanders, leave room for ribbons. Mark crossing paths with narrow masking tape. Stick the cloves into the fruit, about a cloves’ head distance from one another; they’ll end up closer as the fruit dries and shrinks. Roll the pomanders in equal parts of ground cinnamon and orris root (a fixative found wherever potpourri supplies are sold), and wrap each in tissue paper. Let them cure for 4 to 6 weeks, before tying ribbon around them. Hang to give off a pleasant scent!

This Christmas, you can teach your children about recycling, save a bunch of trees, AND have a fun project for your kids to do while you do a million other holiday-related tasks. Use the eco-smart way to wrap gifts and use either butcher paper, the back of other recycled wrapping paper, or even cut up brown paper bags and let your child decorate the paper with fun Christmas colors, stickers, and/or stamps. Let dry, and voila! Eco-smart wrapping paper that is fun and lets your child participate in the whole gift-wrapping process. The next best thing would be to buy wrapping paper made with sustainable materials such as recycled paper. If every American family wrapped just three gifts in 100% recycled wrap, we’d save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields. If only 10,000 people wrap just one gift in 100% recycled paper, we’ll keep about 64 trees standing!