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Spring Peepers

What can you do with your preschooler to celebrate the arrival of spring? The days are alternately balmy and chilly here, but spring has come, at least in the animal world. Here are a few ideas of ways to enjoy spring with your preschooler. You can look for frogs. In our neighborhood, the echoes of frogs are drifting down the street this time of the year. It’s lovely. My daughter and my husband went up to the local pond to visit them one night, complete with a trio of neighbors and a flashlight. If there are ditches near you, you … Continue reading →

The Outdoor Challenge: Bats, Frogs, and Quiet Wonder

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How are you doing with the outdoor challenge? As the weather becomes more summery in our region, we’re doing quite well. In fact, my daughter fell asleep exhausted tonight because she had been playing outside for almost twelve hours today. It’s yesterday night that I want to talk about, though. Yesterday evening my husband was out. My daughter and I indulged in a ritual that we did frequently last summer. It’s a wonderful way to reconnect with your preschooler in the spring and summer months, even if you work outside the home. I find that working outside the home really … Continue reading →

Creating a Terrarium With Your Preschooler

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Have you got bugs? We do. Yesterday my daughter brought home a whole package of snails from her grandmother’s house, all delicately wrapped in a tulip petal. The package was lovely, the snails multicolored and varied. A sign of spring, to be sure. I think that our yard has one of the thickest snail populations in our neighborhood, mostly due to my daughter’s inclination for gathering neighborhood snails and placing them in our flower and vegetable gardens. To focus her interest a bit and create a place where she can observe the snails for a while without freeing them into … Continue reading →

Snow White’s Secret Green Streak

For my wrap-up to environmental week, I’m going to explore whether or not Walt Disney was, in part, responsible for the modern environmental movement. According to a book by a Cambridge University scholar, Disney films, particularly those produced between 1937 and 1967 and 1984 and 2005, are responsible for making viewers respond to and care more for the natural world. “The Idea of Nature in Disney Animation” by Dr. David Whitley, an English literature professor, argues that the eras of Walt Disney and Michael Eisner produced films which made young viewers in particular aware of nature and the issues surrounding … Continue reading →