My Grandmother Lovejoy taught me that nature isn’t something only enjoyed on a vacation or a drive to far away, but that it is everywhere around you. You’ll find it in the most obvious and unlikely places—in the corner of the living room where the spider spins, in your backyard where the worms wriggle silently through the soil, or in the night skies where fireflies flicker and meteor showers scribe the blackness with streaks of glittering light.
When you share nature with your grandchild, there are no rules that say you must know the answer to every question or the name of every bird, plant, or insect you discover. Sometimes the shared curiosity and then the journey of looking for answers are more exciting than the answers themselves. Experiencing nature together means that you open yourselves, like blooming flowers, to the myriad mysteries unfolding around you.
Set aside time to walk with your grandchild very slowly around your yard or neighborhood and tote along your Backyard Explorer Kit for close inspections. Remember to cultivate patience and approach your shared adventures with a child’s anticipation. Stop whenever and wherever your youngster shows an interest in something. Hunker down close to the object, look at it together with a magnifying glass, and talk about it. Don’t rush from point to point with your thoughts on the finish line. Slip your grown-up perception of time into the filaments of your grandchild’s life until the two are woven together as finely as an oriole’s nest.
A magnifying glass is one of the best ways to tune a child into the tiniest things in nature.
• A big (unbreakable) magnifying glass
• Drawing pad or journal
• Colored pencils or crayons
• Inexpensive camera
• Binoculars (a 7 × 35 or 8 × 50 lens is fine for viewing, but a 12 × 60 would be better)
• Headlamp (for nighttime viewing; some are equipped with a red bulb)
• Small tape or digital recorder
Keep these items in a bucket or basket close to the back door so they are always handy.
When you’re sharing nature with a child, you’ll find that even a short walk through your backyard will yield a crop of fresh discoveries and questions. Start a tradition of asking, “I wonder what’s going on outdoors today?” then grab your grandchild’s hand and your Backyard Explorer Kit and step outside. Look under rocks or push aside leaves, and you’re likely to find some roly-poly bugs, a beetle, or maybe a worm or two. Use your magnifying glass to look closely at a handful of soil or the insect-busy face of a sunflower or cosmos blossom. Move from sunny to shady spots to find a variety of flowers, trees, bushes, and critters. You’ll cultivate a new awareness and appreciation of even the tiniest happenings, and you’ll give a gift of curiosity that lasts a lifetime.
When my grandchildren were babies, I would carry them from plant to plant, tree to bush, letting them touch, see, smell, taste (only things I knew to be safe), and listen to the goings-on in the backyard. We didn’t need to know the proper names of things; we just enjoyed experiencing them. Our walks became a tradition, just as the walks I shared with my grandmother became one of my most cherished memories. No matter your grandchild’s age, now is the time for you to become a child-at-heart and reexamine the world from his or her perspective.
Close your eyes and listen! Try to identify and describe as many sounds as possible. Do you hear the wind through the needles and leaves of trees? Some trees have such distinct “voices” that when their leaves are windblown, we can recognize the kind of tree we’re hearing. Stand near a pine and listen to the whispering of the needles. Listen to the wind rushing through cottonwood, poplar, or aspen leaves, which sound like crackling fires, or oaks, which sound like rustling taffeta skirts. Can you hear birdsong, hummingbird wings, bumblebees rumbling, grasshoppers snapping as they leap, dragonflies clattering together in battle, water dripping, children yelling, music playing, or cars honking? Ask your child, “What do you hear? Can you hear the . . . ? Can you make that kind of sound?” Imitate the varying sounds and try to count how many there are.
Birdbaths are a powerful magnet for birds of all kinds.
Forget about your dignity and lead your youngster on a snuffle, snort, and sniff walk around your yard, neighborhood, or a park. You’ll sound like a dog on a trail, but you’ll find scents everywhere that you may have overlooked—even rocks sometimes have a scent. Crush mint leaves in your hand. Sniff the newly mown grass, the blooming roses, or the perfume of blossoming fruit trees. How does a plant smell when a leaf is crumpled or when a twig is snapped? Do ripening strawberries or apples have a fragrance?
Visit areas of your yard, neighborhood, or a U-Pick farm, where there are edible herbs, fruits, or vegetables, and take time to taste and savor. Describe which of the five tastes you’re experiencing. Is it sweet, sour, bitter, salty, or umami (Japanese for “delicious”)? The umami taste is noticeable in the core flesh and seeds of a yummy, ripe tomato.
At this moment in time, there is only the strawberry.
Talk about the myriad colors and shapes you can see outdoors. Describe the specific colors: not just green, but chartreuse, lime, sage, silvery, or olive—the nuances are endless. Use colored pencils or crayons to duplicate the objects and the colors in your nature journal or drawing pad. Don’t worry about how the drawings look; just play with the colors and shapes. Look for natural patterns in rocks, leaves, shells, and even windrows of sand. Pick samples of differently shaped petals and leaves and bring them home to study or to paste into your nature journal.
Run little hands over velvety leaves like lamb’s ears, rubbery succulents, tasseled grasses, suede moss, stubbly lawn, lichens, tree bark, flowers, and herbs. Dip your fingers in the water of last night’s rain puddle. Talk about and sample the tickling, prickling, soft, ridged, pliable, stiff, crumpled, woody, smooth, flexible, warty, bristly, granular, wet, and clumpy things surrounding you. Jot some quick notes in your nature journal about what you saw and how things felt when you touched them.
If this kind of close observation is new to you, too, you’ve given yourself (as well as your grandchild) a gift—you’ll never go outdoors again without seeing and feeling things in a fresh way.
Children naturally want to touch everything they encounter.
One of my favorite ways to help children really “see” things is to take them on a gathering expedition with a sensory sack. Give each child a large brown paper sack or other container. Take a leisurely walk and have each child gather a dozen objects, such as cones, seeds, leaves, shells—any natural thing with an interesting shape, texture, or scent. As they pick up articles, they should drop them immediately into their sacks, keeping them tightly closed and opening them only when adding to them. No fair peeking—just drop the finds inside and keep going.
When you return home, each collector (one at a time) sets his closed sensory sack on a table and moves around the table to a new place in front of a sack filled by another child. Tie a bandanna around the first child’s eyes, open the sack slightly, and let him reach inside and grab one article. After he takes time to feel it, he describes it to the other players, and guesses what it might be. (Write down the answer and silently give ten points for each correct guess.) Finally, let him lift it out and onto the table. Repeat the process until the sack is emptied; then take off his bandanna and let him see the objects. Give the child his score. Let each child have a turn with one of the sacks. This simple game is not only fun, it helps children develop their communication and observational skills, and even practice a bit of math.
Children become totally immersed in nature when they are on a mission.
My grandmother encouraged me to collect natural treasures for a “nature table” she designated on the dining room buffet. Even the most common and overlooked bits of nature proved fascinating—things like the nectar pathways inside flowers, the tiny barbules on owl feathers, and the pearly operculum (trapdoor) of a moon snail we found on Catalina Island. We researched the identity of things we didn’t know and made a label for each piece with the name, date, and location where we found it.
Whenever you go outside together, take along a bucket or basket to gather your own treasures. Dedicate a table to display the wonderful things you’ve collected. Research the identity of all you find and any unusual qualities, stories, or natural history attached to them. Keep a box of field guides and 3-by-5-inch cards nearby to help make identification tags for your “museum” treasures. You might want to pick a theme of the week—for example, heart-shaped rocks, acorns, pinecones, and seeds. You can build your own bird’s nests as we did by collecting twigs, grass, moss, and lichens, and moistening the fibers to mold them into nest shapes.
Change your “museum” displays weekly and take time to discover exciting facts about the objects.
Spend an afternoon with your youngster drawing a map of your yard or neighborhood on a large sheet of paper. Draw a tiny house where your home is located and indicate any special features of the landscape such as a tree house, pond, dead tree, outbuilding, or fence. Post the map on a bulletin board, wall, or in your child’s hideout (see here).
Whenever you walk together, take along your notebook and keep track of where you discovered something notable, such as a turtle sunbathing, a spider spinning an orb web, crows mobbing a hawk, or a patch of blooming flowers—anything that attracts your child’s attention. When you return home, pinpoint on the map where you made new discoveries. Help your child draw the critters, flowers, or trees on the map where you saw them, add comments to the map, and date your discoveries.
After a few seasons of adding to and keeping your nature map, you’ll find that the natural cycles (nesting, migrations, blooming of flowers, fruiting) repeat during the same time period each year. Keeping a nature map fosters a child’s intimacy with her surroundings and opens her eyes to the untold mysteries and happenings in even the smallest yard or most crowded neighborhood.
Start your map in your own backyard so your grandchild will feel familiar with her surroundings.
Next time you are out on one of your expeditions with your grandchild, make a point to notice the variety of leaf shapes in bushes, trees, and vines. Some maple and fig leaves resemble hands; cottonwood and redbud leaves are perfect hearts; magnolia leaves are tough and leathery enough to paint on. Sassafras have leaves like mittens, and elephant’s ear plants have leaves like . . . you guessed it! Look down at the tiny ground-hugging violets with sweet, heart-shaped collars. Examine the rhubarb’s parasol, the nasturtium and lady’s mantle capes, and the fennel’s ferny foliage. Every leaf has its own signature shape and texture, and sometimes, as in the case of fennel, its own scent.
Take a leaf walk on a dry day and collect a basket of the best specimens. Look for different shapes, sizes, and colors. When you get home, brush the soil off the leaves and spread them on a table with the vein side up. Look at them through your magnifying glass. Explain to your child that each leaf is like a little food factory that sips sunlight and gases and turns them into a sugary supper for the plant. The veins are tiny straw highways that transport the sugary supper from the leaves to the plant. Without these healthy veins doing their jobs, a plant would not survive.
When you are out on your leaf-collecting walk, gather leaves for the other art projects described in “Rainy Day Activities” (see here)—creating a leaf collage, making a natural stained glass window, or making leaf cards for a Mother Nature’s Memory Game.
Lay a piece of paper over the top of the flat leaves and show your child how to rub the side of a peeled crayon, a pastel stick, chalk, or a soft pencil back and forth across it (be careful not to tear the paper) until you have what looks like a skeleton-view of the leaf.
You can use your homemade leaf paper for a unique and personal gift wrap, stationery, or gift cards. If you do a colorfast rubbing (such as with crayons), you can cut out each individual leaf shape for bookmarks or place cards for a special family meal.
Try doing your leaf rubbings on a sheet of vellum or tracing paper. Tape it onto a window for a magical effect.
Another way you can connect your grandchild to nature is by working together to turn your yard into a friendly gathering place for critters. All you need to provide are three ingredients: food, water, and shelter—which can be as simple as a pile of twigs or as fancy as a painted toad house.
A pond, birdbaths, a diversity of plants, and a layer of straw mulch help make this garden a haven for critters and kids.
Butterflies recognize certain combinations of colors, shapes, sizes, fragrances, arrangement of blooms, and visible and invisible nectar guides to find their food preferences. To attract them to your porch or yard, just plant a pot or plot of some of their favorites such as butterfly weed, cosmos, lavender, or zinnias.
Would you believe me if I told you that butterflies are not only attracted to sweet flowers, but also to fresh piles of dung, rotting fruit, and mud puddles? Why not make a big mud pie to attract backyard butterflies? Butterflies don’t drink from open water, so your moist mud pie is the perfect place for them to stop for refreshment.
A butterfly will land and uncoil its springlike proboscis to suck minerals, dissolved salts, protein, and calcium—invisible ingredients they need for successful mating.
Fill a large saucer with soil and sand. Sprinkle on a bit of table salt.
Have your grandchild thoroughly wet the soil to make a mud pie, and then wet it every day—a task she will love. Place a flat rock in the center of the pie so butterflies can land and feed. Drizzle a bit of maple syrup on part of the rock for an extra snack.
Set the mud pie in a sunny area of your garden, preferably near flowers. You might want to spy on your mud pie from inside your hideout (see here). If you keep a close watch, you may see all kinds of butterflies, from butter-colored sulphurs, flittery skippers, blues, which look like tiny patches of sky, and yellow-and-black tiger-striped swallowtails—all gathering for a mud pie party.
Everyone is welcome at the mud pie party.
To attract an array of beneficial critters to your backyard, make some of these simple animal- and insect-friendly projects with your grandchild.
Orchard mason bees are our native pollinators and not aggressive. Mount a tin can and fill it with paper straws (above) or provide a wood block (below) drilled with 3/16-inch holes about ¾ inch apart.
Phoebes are great bug eaters and prefer to nest on protected porches or special shelves.
Provide a variety of feeders for different birds. This covered tray feeder keeps seed and nuts dry.
Drill a ⅝-inch hole in a clay pot for bee entry. Lay dry grass at bottom and cover the top with a flat rock to keep the inside dry.
Set out a basket of feathers, grass, and fibers and watch your birds gather them for their nests.
Birdhouses encourage future generations.
Mound a permanent stack of rocks for a lizard hotel. Lizards will feast on insects and larvae.
Save some of your flower clippings, bundle them, and attach them to a post to feed a host of birds.
A terra-cotta pot slightly raised (about 2 inches) on a rock will give a toad a safe abode.
Plant a pot of flowers to lure bees, butterflies, flower flies, and ladybird beetles.
A pond is always the center of activity in a garden. But a half barrel will suffice.
Even a saucer of water will encourage insect-eating frogs to visit your gardens.
Oh, you handsome toad, thank you for eating 2,000 insects a season. Provide him with a pesticide-free garden and a layer of mulch.
Plant fennel, parsley, or dill to encourage swallowtail butterflies to deposit eggs. Their young will feed on the host plants.
Box turtles feast on slugs and grubs.
Sunflowers will attract butterflies, birds, and moths galore for both day and night viewing.
Of all the birds in the garden, I think my grandchildren love the hummingbirds the most. The fearless little hummers think nothing of flying close to children as if to monitor what they’re doing. You’re most likely to entice hummingbirds into your yard if you and your grandchild plant a big pot or window box of easy-to-grow orange and red tubular flowers like salvia, fuchsia, penstemon, or nasturtium.
A hummingbird feeder is one of the best investments you can make for your grandchild’s up-close nature experiences. Hang a feeder in a shady spot in an area you can view from indoors, or attach a suction-cup nectar feeder to your window for some amazing views. Sometimes a feeder will attract numerous hummers that will all vie for a place to sip.
Make your own homemade nectar—it’s easy and much better for the birds than the commercial mix with coloring. Combine one part pure cane sugar (never honey or sugar substitutes) with four parts water (never any food coloring). Bring water to a boil or microwave on high for one and a half minutes or until the sugar is dissolved, then set aside to cool. (Store leftover nectar in the refrigerator.)
If you’re not having luck attracting hummers, tie a bright red bow to the top of the feeder. Your feeder should be cleaned with a bottle brush and pipe cleaners every four days, then rinsed and rinsed again before filling. Please don’t believe the old tale that hummingbird feeders should be removed in early fall. You just may be a lifesaver for a bird who has been blown off course or caught in a storm during its long migration.
I remember early spring mornings when Grandmother would tell me to sit quietly as she’d tug a hairbrush through my tangled red curls. At the end of the ordeal, she patiently ran a comb through the brush, lifted out the hair, and tucked it into a strawberry basket, along with short pieces of string, bird feathers, wool, dried grasses, pine needles, and twigs, and placed the basket outside near our breakfast-nook window. Then, we’d sit inside and watch as swallows selected the white feathers for their boxes, jays took a bit of everything for their untidy nests, and goldfinches, towhees, and others rummaged through the contents like shoppers at a flea market.
In the springtime, when birds are getting ready to build their nests, go outdoors together and gather twigs, short pieces of natural fiber, feathers, hair, fur, milkweed down, and grasses. When you return home, spread the fibers on a table and tuck them into a mesh bag (the kind often filled with fruit, potatoes, or onions) or a fruit or suet basket. Hang the container in an area out of reach of cats and out of the elements so the contents stay dry. If possible, hang the fibers near a window or hideout, so your child can see how the birds select and tug out the contents. Then, quietly track the birds with your binoculars. With good luck, you’ll be able to see where they build their nests and to watch them incubate their eggs and raise their young.
Our offerings of twigs, twine, leaves, and moss were put to good use in this nest.
One of the best days of my young life happened when Grandmother Lovejoy’s old refrigerator conked out and she replaced it with a new one. After the movers delivered the refrigerator, we were left with a huge cardboard box that Grandmother said would be my hideout.
My hideout house turned into a perfect spot for spying. I loved peering through the small holes to watch the mockingbird shove food down her noisy babies’ mouths. Sometimes, a hummingbird zoomed up to my window and inspected me through one of the peepholes. I spent hours tucked away inside there, immersed in the world of nature but unnoticed by the critters I spied on.
Kids love their own hideouts, a place where they can dream, read, visit with pals, or sometimes just watch what is happening around them. A good hideout, which birdwatchers and photographers call a “blind,” is the best way to see nature without nature seeing you.
Every child loves a hideout. Moses claims ownership of this appliance-box fort.
Visit an appliance store and ask if you can have one of their large, empty boxes (big enough for your grandchild to stand inside).
1. Stand the box on end and open the four flaps on top. Draw a triangle on two opposing flaps, as shown.
2. Cut along the dotted lines with a razor knife and fold the cut flaps up.
3. Fold the uncut flaps up to close the box and form a peaked roof. Use duct tape to seal the top ridge and sides of the roof.
4. Draw windows and a door on the cardboard, score along the sides leaving a side uncut for the hinge. Next, note where your grandchild’s eyes are when standing or sitting on the ground and score small openings or peepholes on the sides of the hideout. Use a razor knife to cut through the cardboard, and poke through the scored holes with a screwdriver to open them. You may want to staple nylon screening over the door (leave a flap big enough to crawl through) and the openings to prevent mosquitoes from entering.
5. Have a painting party and coat the outside of your hideout with exterior house paint and decorate it with murals of flowers, bugs, and animals.
Place the hideout in a shady spot near an area used by birds (and other critters) for feeding, drinking, or bathing. Equip it with things like a blanket, water, notepad, binoculars, a magnifying glass for seeing things up close, and maybe even a tape recorder for birdcalls or observations. You might also want to hang a “neighborhood bird chart” (see sidebar) to help your grandchild recognize visitors.
One way you can get to know birdcalls is by attaching a transparent acrylic feeder to one of your most frequented window areas—close to a kitchen table or reading chair. The windowpane feeders cling to glass with suction cups and are easy to relocate, if necessary. Some bird feeders are especially adapted to thistle seed, sunflower seed, or suet. You’ll attract a wide variety of birds by using more than one type of feed. Keep a bird book nearby to help with identification and call recognition.
Whenever you’re outside, make a game of listening for bird words and name-callers. Do your best to imitate them. Just call back quickly and you and your grandchild will usually get an immediate reply. Loudly make a kissing noise or a pish-pish-pish sound. When you do this, curious birds will often fly near to identify you.
Step outside, close your eyes, and listen to the myriad songs and calls of your neighborhood birds. Some whistle, hoot, say their own names, mimic other birds and animals, laugh, shriek, or sing lilting melodies, and some even say words you may recognize.
Cedar waxwings will visit your yard if it has a supply of berry-producing plants.
Tune in and try to locate the bird you hear saying these bird words.
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“What cheer, cheer, cheer! Chip, chip, birdy, birdy!” |
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“Drink your tea, ee, ee, ee!” |
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“Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” |
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“Fire! Fire! Where, where, here, here, see it, see it!” |
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“Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody!” |
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“Spring of the year! See you, soon. I will see you. Spring is here!” |
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“Teakettle, tea-kettle, teakettle!” |
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“Look up! See me: Over here, this way. Do you hear me? Higher still, chewy!” |
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“Trees, trees, murmuring trees, 1, 2, 3, I’m lazy!” |
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“Chick-a-dee-dee-dee. Feed me, feeeed me!” |
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“Very, very pleased to meet cha!” |
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“Three-eight, three-eight, three-eight!” |
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“Beans, beans, beans!” |
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“Teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher!” |
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“Witch-ity, Witch-ity, witch-ity, witch!” |
Collect a few open pinecones to fill with your homemade peanut butter energy food. Hang them in the spring and fall when the weather is cooler. Birds will welcome the high-energy food source.
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup canola oil
4 cups yellow cornmeal
1 cup white flour
A few teaspoons of shelled sunflower seeds or raisins
Pinecones
Hooks or wire
Your grandchild will be a great help measuring and mixing the ingredients together. Using a knife or spoon, slather it onto and into the open scales of a pinecone. Store leftover Energy Booster in a covered container in the refrigerator.
Screw a hook into each cone at the bottom or tie wire to the top of the pinecones. Suspend the pinecones from branches, porch eaves, or deck railings out of the sunlight.
A variety of feeders and seeds will attract an amazing array of birds.
I still remember how my heart thumped whenever we set out on one of our scavenger hunts. Although I knew it was only a game, somehow it seemed like the most fun task in the world to find everything on the list and do it faster than the other team.
The game needs at least four players for two teams, but more participants make it even more fun.
Make a list of at least ten nature objects that are commonly found in your area and available that season. For instance, you wouldn’t list acorns in June or lilac blossoms in August. Provide each team with the list of items and one large paper bag. Blow a whistle or ring a bell to signal the start, and explain that you will do the same thing when the hunt is over. Limit the scavenger hunt to half an hour. When the stop whistle blows, both teams gather and show what they have. Appropriate prizes are awarded to the winners.
1. pinecone
2. heart-shaped leaf
3. roly-poly bug
4. egg-shaped rock
5. feather
6. 3 daisies
7. seeds from flowers
8. 2 fruits or berries
9. fern fronds
10. dandelion flower or puffball
An old-fashioned scavenger hunt quickly turns kids into nature detectives.
Early one morning, Grandmother Lovejoy took me outside to her shady front porch. From our perch above the broad St. Augustine lawn, we could see hundreds of gossamer veils blanketing the grass. Grandmother called them “faerie handkerchiefs” and explained that these dew-spangled creations were the sheet webs of spiders. I was terrified of spiders, as are many children. Learning that spiders were the magical weavers of “faerie handkerchiefs” helped me overcome my fears.
Knowledge and familiarity are two ways you can quell some of your grandchild’s fears about spiders. You’re likely to find spiders throughout your yard, which will make it easy to watch them while they hunt or spin their miraculous webs.
Whenever you explore your garden with your magnifying glass, you’ll be able to peek into the quiet lives of a variety of spiders. Look closely along the edges of plant borders, under flower blossoms (where you usually find crab spiders), around trees, in bushes and vines, and on fences. Nearly everywhere you look, there is probably a web and a shy spider hiding out and looking at you.
Different species of spiders have their own style of making webs, from funnels to sheets, hammocks, triangles, thick silk trapdoors (with hinges) atop burrows, tangles, indoor cobwebs, domes, bowls, labyrinths, parasols, sacks, and, my favorite, cartwheel orbs that resemble perfect lace doilies. See how many you can find.
Sketchbook of a Spider Watcher
On our Maine porch, our resident orb-weaving spider Seraphina spins her beautiful daily web. Seraphina is an Araneus and she is related to Charlotte. Sometimes when she twangs at the spiral, she looks like a harp player.
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32 minutes |
58 minutes |
This game, a treasure hunt for spiders, needs two or more participants. Take a walk and carry along a magnifying glass and a pad of paper for scorekeeping. (Score 10 points for each thing you find on this list.)
A spider that looks and walks like a crab?
A web that looks like a lace doily?
A spiderweb shaped like a funnel or a triangle?
A spider dangling from a single dragline?
A spider “ballooning” through the air on a silken thread as Charlotte’s babies did in Charlotte’s Web?
A spider carrying her babies, eggs, or an egg sack on her abdomen?
A spider hiding under a rock or some leaves?
A silken bundle or “mummy” in a web? Watch a web for a few minutes after a fly or bug is caught, and you’ll see how the “mummy” is made.
A very long-legged spider often found under logs, in the corners of porches, or in sheds and basements? If he gyrates, wildly to confuse his prey, he’s a vibrating spider.
A long-legged critter with one fused body part, no antennae, and two eyes? It isn’t a spider, but a harvestman. He’ll rise up on six legs and wave two legs above his body when he is disturbed.
The spider, dropping from a twig, Unwinds a thread of her devising: A thin premeditated rig To use in rising.
—E. B. White
An Argiope awaits her supper.
Water is a magnet for children and wildlife. Whether it is a mud puddle for splashing or a pond filled with tadpoles and fish, find a water source and you’ll find myriad miracles all around you. My grandkids are happiest when they’re rescuing tadpoles from shrinking puddles, exploring tide pools at the ocean, or playing in the creek. Whenever a rock is turned over, new and exciting creatures are uncovered. When a pond is skimmed with a net, wonderful things happen: tiny fish flee, frogs hop to a safe hiding place, water-strider spiders skate rapidly away, and voracious dragonfly naiads, with their huge hinged jaws, strike fear in young hearts.
When you set out on your own waterside expedition, take along a bucket, a dipping net (available in pet, sporting goods, and toy stores), an underwater viewer (directions for making it are here), magnifying glass, and a camera. For the best visibility, find a safe, well-lit place for your water explorations, and make sure that your shadow is behind or beside you, but not in the area you’re trying to scope out. Note: Remember never to leave a child alone near water, not even for a minute.
Slow down, assume a comfortable position, stop moving, and shhhhhh; the more quiet you are, the easier it is to eavesdrop on the critters. You may think that your grandchild doesn’t know how to be still, but if you whisper that you need to be as quiet as a spider, your child usually will slip into the mood of the moment.
As the pond dwellers become used to you, they’ll resume their lives and you’ll be able to watch damselflies catching bugs, swallows swooping in for insects, dragonflies sitting like sentinels atop rushes, and butterflies cruising from flower to flower. The activities are ever changing and endlessly fascinating.
Under the surface of the water, you’ll find another world of life. Use your homemade underwater viewer to scope out the activities. For the first few minutes, you may not see anything, but as your eyes become accustomed to this watery habitat, all sorts of things will loom into view. When you spot something exciting, dip it out with a net or jar and examine it with your magnifying glass. You might even take a photo of any odd specimens so you can consult your field guides when you return home. (Remember to return your discoveries to their watery home.)
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A dragonfly naiad is a fierce insect that catches fish and tadpoles. |
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A mayfly lives one day as a fly. |
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A water-strider spider feeds on small critters. |
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A gomphid dragonfly perches like a hawk, then flies forth to seize prey and return to perch. |
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A stonefly nymph lives in moving water. |
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A diving beetle is found in ponds, streams, and lakes. Its back legs are like paddles. |
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A whirligig beetle twirls and wildly feeds on small insects that fall into water. |
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A water boatman uses its middle and hind legs as oars and front legs to collect algae and plants. |
A child will explore a pond or creek for hours.
Whenever you’re out together near a pond, tide pool, creek, or lake, use your homemade viewer to get a water critter’s view of life.
Large #10 can (3 quarts)
1-gallon plastic freezer bag
Thick rubber band
Remove both ends of the tin can. Place the tin can in the plastic bag. Secure the bag with a big rubber band. Slowly lay the can on the water, with the open end up, and watch!
For night spying underwater, find a big jar with an airtight lid. Place a small, lit flashlight facedown inside the jar and screw on the lid. Hold the jar in the water with the beam facing down.
Frogs are great bug catchers.
A jar of polliwogs to watch for a few hours.
A simple underwater viewer opens up a new world.
My favorite meals were the ones Grandmother tucked into one of her old bandannas and tied to the end of a sycamore stick. I loved hiking around the garden with the stick propped on my shoulder, the bandanna bundle swinging from side to side. Grandmother called this a “bindlestick lunch” (bindle is the German word for “bundle”), and every bite was blissful.
Bindlesticks are also an easy way for a young naturalist to carry supplies.
My granddaughter Sara May is the one who taught me how exciting the discovery of animal tracks can be for a child. One day as we were hiking along the creek that flows through our town, she looked down at the muddy bank and excitedly announced that she could see the tracks of a dog. We kept looking and found what looked like bird tracks—delicate hieroglyphics all over a sandy spot near a pool. We were hooked and couldn’t stop scouring the ground for clues of what animals had visited.
Since most people don’t have a pond or creek in their yard, I devised a simple water feature for the backyard that would not only be a magnet for wildlife, but also would record the tracks of the critters attracted to the water both day and night.
Large saucer, tray, or garbage can lid
Sand
Water
Bury the container up to its rim in soil in a sheltered, shady part of your yard. Surround it with a circle of sand about 2 inches deep and a foot wider than the container. Late in the afternoon, let your grandchild fill the container with water and smooth the sand. Go out first thing in the morning to look for the telltale tracks of animals that may have visited the “pond” during the night. Pat sand smooth again and check often for pawprints. Note in your journal which animals have visited, and encourage your child to make a quick sketch of the tracks it left.
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Deer |
Frog |
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Crow |
Mole |
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Sparrow |
Skunk |
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Lizard |
Gray squirrel |
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Bobcat |
Red fox |
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Chipmunk |
Raccoon |
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Toad |
Opossum |
When the warm summer night cloaks your yard in darkness, it is time for some exciting, mysterious, and sometimes even scary, night-spying adventures. After the sun sets, bats begin their hunt, clicking above you in a strange high-pitched voice that you can sometimes hear. Moths flutter and dip into flowers, toads ramble bandy-legged through the yard, frogs croak, crickets trill, and owls hoo-hoo-hoot. Darkness sharpens our senses, and maybe it’s my imagination, but it seems to heighten expectations, as though adventures are just around that tree, behind that rock, or beside the rippling pond.
So many children are afraid of the dark, yet darkness often yields the best crop of wonder. You and your grandchild should pick up a flashlight and a magnifying glass, and move slowly through your yard or neighborhood. (Choose one special area of your yard for young children or explore the surrounding neighborhood with older kids.)
Have you ever noticed how after only a few minutes of walking in the darkness, our eyes adapt and things around us pop into view? Our human eyes are equipped with cells called rods and cones. The rods are light sensitive, which helps us see in darkness, and the cones allow us to see color. Humans still don’t have the great night vision of owls, who have many hundreds of thousands more rods in their big eyes than we do.
Night eyes of a barred owl.
Take a little hand in yours, and head out into the night. Shhhhhhh, walk slowly, talk softly, and look, look, look—under leaves, at the tops of grasses, in trees, bushes, and flowers. For best viewing, wear a headlamp (like a miner’s light, which is held on the head by an adjustable elastic band) because the light will be at eye level and you’ll see the eyeshine that signals the location of hidden critters. Continue to discover what you are likely to see in the dark.
On a June evening when you see little pinpricks of light flashing in the backyard, go outside to search for fireflies. Look for the flying male’s flash and the perched female’s answering dash of light. Count how many times in a row the male flashes, and use your flashlight to send identical signals. Watch the fireflies flash in return. They think you’re a big firefly in their territory!
In some cultures, fireflies are tucked into carved and pierced gourds to be used as natural lanterns. You can make your own lantern in a screen-covered canning jar. Female fireflies are the easiest to catch because they sit still on twigs and grasses. Capture a few of them gently in a jar, top the jar with a piece of nylon screen secured with a rubber band, and you’ve got a perfect lantern. Sit in a dark place with your lantern to observe the fireflies. Each species has its own sequence, intensity, and rhythm of flashing. Don’t forget to release them before the night is over.
Male (right) and female fireflies.
Follow that cricket’s chirp! Cup your hands behind your ears and listen—you’re extending your ear power by making them bigger, like rabbits, deer, and foxes. You’ll be better able to locate and track a trilling male cricket (only the male sings) to his hideout. Move slowly as you approach, or he’ll use his strong jumping legs for a quick escape. Focus your flashlight on him and watch until the trilling resumes. Crickets make their melodic tunes by stridulating—moving a sharp-edged scraper on the outer edge of one wing against the filelike teeth of the other. This action causes a vibration that resonates on a small portion of the wing called the “harp.”
If you would like to invite a singing cricket into your home, you’ll need a jar, a small piece of nylon screen, and a thick rubber band. Sneak up on one of your backyard crickets, place the jar over him, and slide the screen under him (they usually move for the screen, but grudgingly). Lift the jar and hold the screen in place with the thick rubber band. Use your magnifying glass to look at the cricket as closely as he is probably looking at you. Doesn’t he look as though he is wearing an ancient suit of ill-fitting armor?
If you want to keep your cricket indoors for a few days, you’ll need to provide a larger enclosure like an aquarium topped by a sheet of screen. Add a layer of soil to the bottom, put in a handful of grasses, some twiggy little branches, and a moist piece of sponge for drinking. Your grandchild will love to feed him with a few bread crumbs and bits of apple or potato—but not too much! Remove the sponge daily, run hot water over it to clean it, moisten it with cool water, and place it back in the cage. You’ll be repaid with the insistent chirp-and-trill song of your little visitor. Remember to release the cricket after a few days of watching him.
When I found a cricket in this bean tepee, I encircled it with screen so we could be serenaded for a few nights.
Cricket chirping is so predictable that in some Japanese homes, crickets were kept as burglar alarms. The minute the normally vociferous crickets felt the vibrations of footsteps, they ceased chirping, which alerted their keepers that unwanted guests were in the house.
Moon walks aren’t just for astronauts. Go outdoors together for a few minutes every night and look for the rising moon, which comes up in the east and sets in the west just like the sun. It’s best to do this at or near the full moon, when the sun sets and the moon rises at nearly the same time. As the full moon wanes (gets smaller), the moonrise will happen about 30 to 70 minutes later each night.
Use binoculars to help your youngster decide if the moon is a laughing man, a happy woman, or maybe even an animal. Use a camera tripod for support, or prop the binoculars on a railing or wall to make for jitter-free viewing. Through the lens, you’ll be able to see the mountains, seas, and oceans, which we now know are vast lava plains, highlands, craters (the sites of meteorite impact), and dark lava flow areas. On a crescent moon (a sliver in the shape of a C), look at the dark side to see the ethereal earthshine, which is the sun’s reflection off the earth and onto the moon’s night side.
Check on the moon during the night. Sometimes, when there are tiny ice crystals in the atmosphere, you can see a glowing halo around it. On other nights, when the full or nearly full moon is rising or setting and there is a fine mist or spray, you might see a rare and magical moonbow, which can be pearly white or the faint colors of the rainbow. When the moon is waxing, it is growing and on its way to becoming a full moon. When the moon is waning, it is getting smaller and smaller till it is invisible to us, but it’s still up there. Here’s how you can easily remember the phases of the moon with hand movements:
Moon points toward the east (cup your right hand into a backward letter C), shine be increase |
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Moon points toward the west (cup your left hand into a letter C), wane, be at rest. |
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You’ll need at least ten 5-by-8-inch dark-colored cards and a silver marker pen. In the center of each card, draw one phase of the moon until you’ve done all eight phases that can be seen in a one-month cycle. Label each phase from one, which is the new, or black, moon, to number 8. Color in the moon forms with the silver marker. Make an extra copy of phases 1 and 2.
Staple the ten cards together along their left border, keeping them in numerical order and adding the extra phase 1 and phase 2 to the end. Give the pages a quick flip and watch closely. You’ll see a lightning-swift version of the moon phases and the beginning of a new cycle.
Magical Granny, now is your chance to wow your grandchild with your ability to predict an eruption of moths. It’s simple. A couple of days before your night foray, mix your bait, allow it to sit and ferment, then paint your lure together.
Ripe banana
Brown sugar
Stale beer or active dry yeast and warm water
Other ripe fruit such as pears, peaches, plums, and watermelons (optional) 1-inch paintbrush
Your grandchild will be a perfect fruit squisher. Let him go to it. Stir the fruit and the other ingredients together for a thin paste, and let it sit for a couple of days. (I store it in the warm garage and cover it with screening to keep flies away.)
In the late afternoon before your night explorations, paint a broad swath (about 12 inches by 12 inches) of moth sauce on chosen tree trunks or fence posts at a child’s eye level. Be careful not to spill the sauce on the ground or you’ll attract ants.
The best moth-watching hours are on warm nights between 10 p.m. and midnight. Wake your grandchild, pick up your flashlights or headlamps and magnifying glasses, and trek outdoors together for a moonlit adventure. Make a point of explaining that you’ll need to sneak up on the moths as quietly as possible or they’ll take flight. The “ear” (tympanum) of a moth picks up the sounds you make and quickly sends it a warning.
The temptation is great, but don’t shine your flashlight on the trunk until you are right beside it, then remove the cellophane and flick it on. You will be rewarded with dozens of moths of various shapes, colors, and sizes with eyes that glow like brilliant red and orange coals.
Find an area outdoors that is brightly lit at night. Streetlights, store windows, security lights, and athletic fields are just a few of the places to try. Sit quietly nearby and watch for moths and bugs that are attracted to the light. Soon, if you’re lucky, a bat might swoop past and eat his supper on the wing. Bats can eat hundreds and sometimes thousands of insects a night! Watch moths dive to try to escape the bats.
Look closely at the moth’s head and its long tongue-like proboscis that probes at the sauce and sips it through two fused, strawlike tubes. When the moth stops sipping, the tube will recoil like a spring and disappear below the head. Moths have combed, tapered, or feathered antennae that receive scents, such as a female’s pheromones, that waft through the night air for miles. The sensitive antennae also sense sweet aromas that signal a nectar-rich meal. If you gently touch a moth’s scaly wings, you’ll see a light powder on your fingertips. The powder is the residue of the tiny scales that give each species of moth its signature pattern and color. Entomologists believe that the slippery powder may help a moth free itself from a spider’s sticky web.
These moths feed voraciously in their caterpillar stage, but once they emerge from their cocoons, they just search for mates.
The proboscis of a sphinx moth may be longer than its body.
Polyphemus moth
Luna moth
Children are so used to being told to go to bed that it is a rare turn of events when, in the middle of the night, their granny wakes them and invites them to go outdoors for an adventure. Surely, only a magical granny could predict one of the most wondrous and memorable sights ever—a star-flecked sky pierced and scribbled with streaks of shooting stars.
Rouse your child between the hours of midnight and dawn, grab a flashlight and some blankets, and head outdoors to a dark area far from street or porch lights. If there is a moon, situate yourselves with the moon behind you. Stretch out on your backs on one of the blankets, wrap up in the other, and watch and wait (you won’t have to wait long). You may see dozens, sometimes hundreds, of Mother Nature’s fireworks on a good viewing night.
August, summer vacation time when a grandchild is likely to visit, is the month for the most brilliant displays of meteor showers, called the Perseids. If you trace their trails backward, they appear to be streaking out of the constellation Perseus. The Perseids occur on August 12, but usually you can see star shower activity six days before the projected date and three days afterward.
While you’re waiting, tell your child a story (you’re not teaching, you’re sharing) about these sparkling pieces of heaven. The stellar fireworks, which most of us call shooting stars, are tiny particles of interplanetary rocks, ice, and dust—galactic rubble or debris formed from a disintegrating comet. The comet debris, heated by the atmospheric friction of the journey, ignites, glows, and vaporizes as it zooms through the inky sky. Some night you may be surprised and shocked by a fireball (called a bolide), such as one my son and I saw as it streaked across the black sky. The fireball, which was as bright as a flash of lightning, lit up the ocean and coastline so clearly that we could see a distant point of land and the outlines of faraway sand dunes. Some fireballs sport long, luminous trains of rainbow-colored vapors that remain visible after the fireball disappears.
Here are the best times to watch the nighttime lightshows. Mark your calendar in case a little one is visiting.
January 3: Quadrantids
April 22: Lyrids
April 23: Pi-Puppids
May 3: Eta-Aquarids
August 12: Perseids
October 10: Draconids
October 22: Orionids
November 13: Leonids
December 6: Phoenicids
December 14: Geminids
December 23: Ursids
Close your eyes and remember how magical it felt to be huddled around the campfire when you were a child. You toasted marshmallows and listened to the haunting hoot owls and the eerie fingernails-scratching-a-chalkboard screeeee of barn owls. You told scary stories and dumb jokes, sang songs and played music, and burned your tongue on hot s’mores. Nothing has changed. It is still magical, still enchanting, and still fun. It seems like the more complex and electronic our lives are, the more important such simple pleasures and immediate, natural experiences become.
Some of the best times with my grandchildren are when we are huddled around the fire in our backyard. Often, we construct story chains, beginning with a few sentences such as, “When I lived on a tiny island and I was rowing to shore, I dropped my oars and began to float out to sea.” Then we move around the circle, each of us adding our own colorful embroideries to the story. Wow, you’ll be amazed how a child can relate a story when given the chance in the limelight!
Take time to sit together around a campfire and talk, but, more important, listen. Share snippets of family history, transport your grandchild to new vistas and experiences, and let her transport you to a different viewpoint on life. Oh, and don’t forget to toast those marshmallows or make some s’mores (see recipe).
Everything is more magical by firelight.
In case you’ve forgotten this iconic campfire treat:
Ingredients
Chocolate bar
Graham crackers
Marshmallows
Peanut butter (optional)
Put a piece of chocolate on top of a graham cracker square.
Toast a marshmallow until golden brown. Place the hot marshmallow on top of chocolate and top with another graham cracker.
Sit and listen to the night sounds and see how many you can identify. Whoever names the most gets to pick the topic. To get you started, here are a few subjects that have generated some of our best talks:
What was the funniest thing that you ever heard or saw?
If you had only one wish, what would it be?
Tell me about your best-ever outdoor adventure.
Tell me about a place you’ve visited out of town.
What is your favorite song? Can you sing some of it?
What is your favorite animal and why? What interesting facts do you know about it?
Who has done something kind for you? What did they do?
What kindness have you passed on to others?
Weave a story around where you want to go on vacation and what your adventure will be when you get there.
Name two things you love and tell a story about them.
“Cooking is at once child’s play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.”
Craig Claiborne
