Have you noticed birds building their nests, butterflies and bees pollinating the flowers, and tadpoles swimming in our creeks and lakes? Spring is such a great time to get outdoors and show our children all these magical transformations that happen in nature.

We just finished our “Feathered Friends” session at Spring Lake (see pictures below) and got lucky with seeing all kinds of birds, from the ducks and geese of course, to woodpeckers, turkey vultures, crows, scrub jays, red-wing black birds, red-tail hawks, a few Osprey, and more! The children learned everything from what makes a bird a bird, to the bird lifecycle, to how to identify or tell the difference between types of birds, and about nocturnal birds. 

Showing off our owl puppets!

Releasing a baby frog!

Proudly wearing our feather crowns!

Our next session is starting up on May 12^th in Rohnert Park, and is called “creepy crawlies”, focusing on insects and spiders! Fortunately this is a great time of year for this class as the air is buzzing and humming with many little critters to look at!

Finally, just wanted to give a recommendation, (a bit of follow-up from last month’s eco-tip about food) for a new restaurant in Napa called The Little Gourmet - “a kid’s restaurant that’s grown-up friendly!” (www.thelittlegourmetnapa.com) This restaurant offers a wonderful alternative for families wanting to eat out AND have their children eat healthy food at the same time that is creatively presented just for children!

Thanks, and hope to see you outdoors!

Stephanie Derammelaere 

This month’s nature activity was created by my own four-year old son who decided recently that it would be a good idea to paint that beautiful pinecone he had found. I thought it was a great idea, and several brush strokes of tempera paint and globs of glitter glue later, we had a beautiful piece of nature art to display! You could do this with all kinds of natural materials – pine cones, rocks, sticks, shells, feathers – whatever your child finds interesting! Bring it home, supply some paint, glitter glue, markers, or other art supplies, and just see what your little one comes up with. This could be a good idea for a mother’s day gift this month – a hand-painted rock paper weight! For a truly professional finish, glaze the finished product with some clear gloss found at a craft store. 

Another related idea if your child finds any interesting rocks, is to give them a bucket of water and perhaps a sponge or rag, and let them clean the rocks in the water so they can see all the beautiful colors come through. My son can literally do this for an hour in total fascination.

Most children by nature (no pun intended!) seem to love looking at insects and spiders – observing what they are doing, studying how they eat or interact, and looking up and learning about the particular bug they have found. While many parents can be less than enthusiastic about finding an unwanted critter in the house, try using this as a learning opportunity. You can either invest in a simple bug box with a magnifying glass or even just reuse a cleaned jam or other glass jar to catch the critter and examine it before you release it outside. Some simple insect and spider identification books should help you learn about your great find. Not only can this be a great educational experience for your child, but it has a number of other advantages as well. First, spiders act as a natural insecticide, helping reduce pests such as flies, mites, and mosquitoes. Secondly, they also act as food for birds and other animals you DO want around. Simply releasing spiders and insects outside instead of using conventional pesticides and insecticides keeps chemicals out of our environment which can damage kids’ brains and nervous systems which continue to develop through age 12. If 10,000 people help their kids relocate a spider instead of squishing it, we’ll let nature dispose of 20 million insects without man-made chemicals!