All right, here we are again. I’m so glad you’re joining me here, and I’m very excited. I’m doing another solo episode, and that means I’m back at the creek, yay. Six Mile Creek in Ithaca, New York where I live. And you know, it’s nice to visit nature and natural areas all seasons of the year.
And if you’ve been listening to any of the other podcasts, you know that I started in winter, so there was ice and crunch and cold, but now it’s July summer. Yay. And I have my feet in the water there, little splashing. And the water is slow moving and clear, and it is the time of. Crayfish.
Yeah. So if you wanna catch some crayfish, come to Ithaca, New York, six Mile Creek, they’re here. And that leads me to what this episode is all about. Summer fun outdoors. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought I’d just put out. Just some ideas, some Rusty Keer ideas about how to connect to nature, how to have fun outdoors this summer, both for children, for your children, either children that you work with or your own children.
And also you, yeah. Yeah. How can, how can you get outside? For some summer fun in nature. Okay, so I have my top five tips. Yeah, with some tangents you’ll see and a bonus, a bonus sixth that didn’t advertise the sixth tip. But basically I love the idea and thinking about. You getting outside to connect to the outdoors and to nature and to the weather and to the season.
And so in the summertime, you know, it can be busy. There can be a lot going on, you know, camps and schedules and vacations and holidays and all that kind of stuff. But the first little thing that I’m gonna, it’s not really a tip it’s just, I don’t know, an idea. For you is what if you took a day and you spent the whole day in nature?
Yeah. What if you just, you know, picked a spot near where you live and you thought, all right, I’m gonna make a day of it. And you might be having, you know, already, you might be having some holidays and you might be going on some vacations and all this, but this is a little different. This is the idea of like, what if you go to one place in nature and you just spend the whole day right there, and you could bring some lawn chairs, and this is for you.
It could be just you solo. It could be you and your children, you and your family, or it could be you and your class, you and your, your kids that you work with. But let’s just start this idea of like, what if you spent a whole day outside and with almost no agenda? What if you went to the woods or a nice park or a natural area or the beach, you know we do that at the beach, right?
You just spend the day at the beach and then you let the rhythms take over. And I think about that being earth speed. So even now I’m sitting here earth speed by the creek and. Oh, the wind just picked up and you get to look and you notice, oh, the wind is going through these trees in a certain way and those trees in a different way.
And oh, now a few leaves are coming down. And, and just the idea of like, what if you spend a whole day just being on earth speed, watching the butterflies, seeing what happens, and basically this idea of make a day of it and you let it. Organically unfold and you could say no phones, or you keep a phone in the bag in case you need it for something, but not really a phone kind of thing.
And yeah, you could bring some food, some snacks, SST hat, all that kind of stuff. And then this leads to the biggest advice. My biggest tip here is go to water. And water. Water might be the biggest summer idea here. And so what if you took that all nature all day day, and you went to some place that had water?
Could be a creek, a lake, the beach. I’ll talk about bringing water to your space in a second here, but, but just this idea of like, what if you just spent the day by water and if you brought your children? Yeah. And it’s almost like that’s the activity. It’s just a be by that lake. There’s a nice spot here, by QA lake that I like to go to, and suddenly, you know, it hit me.
It’s, it’s more of just a natural area that kind of flows down to the water. And I was like, let’s just get lawn chairs and plant it. Let’s, let’s just sit there and enjoy and watch the day and see how the sun moves through the day and how that changes. Or if the cloud formations and you just, if you’re one place all day and you just watch the clouds go by and maybe there’s rocks to skip or maybe there’s rocks to turn over to look for bugs or crayfish and just see what happens.
See what your children get into. Exploring or building with loose materials that they find on the beach or by the creek or near the lake and just, yeah, be it there. Spend that. Spend that day by water. Another way to spend a day by water. If you’re in your backyard or at your center or school. Or childcare program is to do water play.
Yeah, this, I guess this is the season. Go to water. But then of course you have water play. So this is me. I’m saying have some water play and let it flow, right? You can do it with a hose, you can do it with buckets. If you don’t have a hose hookup outside, you can just fill some pots and pans and things and just bring the water from inside to outside.
It could be mud, kitchen, eat stuff with water. It could be you know, watching water flow. , maybe you have some gutters or pipes, or tubes or, you know, water is a loose part or it could be a water fight. Yeah, yeah. I, I’m, I’m gonna condone some water fighting this summer for you and your kids, or you and your loved ones.
Yeah, water fights, and again, that could be hose or cups of water. And it just, you know, again, this idea of like, how can we get children outside more? Well, water certainly attracts them, right? So water fights. Just getting drenched and having fun and having good memories and seeing what it’s like to have, you know, fresh grass that was cut, but you’re in a waterfight and you got grass clippings on your feet and that’s a certain smell and a certain feel and you know the whole thing.
There’s gonna be laughs with a water fights, you know, you can have certain rules and stuff. You know, have certain boundaries I guess, or wild abandon either way. Okay, here’s another water idea. Frozen water. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve probably talked about how I enjoy in the wintertime, freezing water in interesting pots and pans and buckets and bins for water sculpture, I mean ice sculpture, uh, and water balloons, but frozen now, you know, obviously you can’t put water outside in the summertime. I guess you could, it depends on what elevation you are. Um, but I’m talking about to freeze, but I’m talking about putting it in your freezer. Yeah. One frozen water balloon at a time. I. And then you just have bring out some frozen water balloons or frozen in little Tupperware containers and you, and you could put food coloring in there or you could put, you know, freeze a toy in there and you have to get to it or watch it melt.
And I’ve seen a program have fun doing that, freezing water in their freezer. And then I think this was a, an idea from Bev Boss, over the years of do that and have food coloring and put it in a bin. But then bring out the salt, rock, salt, you know, different kinds of salt and you let kids like pour the salt on and watch how the salt melts and then melts down, down, down into the ice and make different shapes and things.
So ice, there’s an idea. Ice. Okay, how about if you are at a center or program, you have an all outside day? Go for it. And this could be if you’re at home, maybe it’s easy at home, you don’t have any scheduling issues of different age groups. But yeah, how about an all outside day? And that could involve the water fighting or the water play or the frozen balloons.
And just like, what else can you do out there? I got some other ideas here coming. But yeah, an all outside day and, and if you’re at a center. I know sometimes like you have to, you know, certain amount of kids can go out certain times and you know, you have to schedule it with this age group and that age group and they can’t overlap.
And, but I say go for it. Try to have some all outdoor days this summer and you know, maybe you can let some of those schedules slide a little bit or expand and maybe there’s some new places that you could just walk to with children so that some can be within the fenced in area. And some of the outside, and some could be, maybe you have some vacant lots or nearby parks or places that you could go, okay, so here I am at the creek and there’s wildlife.
And so it’s not just crayfish. Look, there’s a snake in the water. A living snake. It’s very interesting. Have you seen a snake swim before? it’s amazing. They do their movement, but they’re, they’re even more graceful in water than they are on land in a way. And they’re quicker. It’s just going downstream. Say you plant yourself in one spot in nature and stuff comes to you and you just watch, observe.
Okay. Here’s number four for outdoors this summer to make you want to go more and spend more time outside. You can be nurturing nature by growing stuff. Yeah, yeah., you know, a lot of people plant in springtime and that’s a good time to plant for a lot of things. But even here in the summer when it’s warmer.
Depending on where you live there’s still lots of things you can plant and still have fun being outside with plants. So I like this idea of, you know, having a little spot. Maybe it’s if you don’t have any, you know, place to dig, you have raised pots or containers with dirt and you plant some seeds. Or maybe you have a little garden area, or you already have raised beds, or maybe you think you, you know, you have that stuff and you think, oh, I missed my opportunity because the time now it’s July.
No, you didn’t, you can still plant. So, yeah, and planting is like this excuse to give yourself more time. In nature and thinking about the outdoors, and you’re thinking about these plants and the children are thinking about the seeds that they planted, and then thinking about the little ceilings that came up and knowing, oh, they need water.
You know, it is hot in the summertime, so they need water. And so it’s this idea of like you, you’ll go every day, check out those plants or every other day, and you’re watering those plants and you’re nurturing those plants and you’re having a loving, compassionate connection and relationship. With those plants you planted and you keep going and you wanna see what happens.
So here are some ideas. So vegetables that you could plant, beans, you know, do your bean teepee and you can have bush beans or beans that grow in vines., arugula, cucumbers, radishes, zucchini. So those are some vegetables that you could still plant here in summertime. Herbs that you could plant. Basil, cilantro.
Dill. They all smell good Flowers. Could be zinnias, Neches, marigolds. Yeah. Plant some stuff. Okay, here is another idea. Number five, loose parts. Right. So you want children to be outside how you want to make it fun and exciting and interesting and unique outside, and what could do that to your already existing backyard or play area or playground, new loose stuff that you bring to it.
And that could be mud kitchen stuff. Maybe you have some pasta pans that you can bring outside so there can be some mud kitchen, fun. Maybe there’s some water vessels. I. For the water fights and the water play. And you could have a maker space for kids who wanna build stuff with boards or straw bales and stuff.
Or you could have natural materials, maybe you have it already for like fairy hut building leaves and sticks and pebbles and pine cones, that kind of stuff. Or you could bring some of that in. If you just have a manmade rubberized play area, bring in some of that, the acorns and pine cones and leaves and have little fairy hut areas, maybe a loose park could be a butterfly in that, you know, going out there and trying to catch some bugs.
And so basically it’s whatever would be enticing would make your outdoor space even more fun. Yeah. Even cardboard boxes, you know, just sprucing it up, making it more fun to be outside. And if you’re looking for some more ideas in the show notes, I have a free resource, outdoor loose parts guide that talks all about loose parts and safety stuff and ideas of loose parts and where to get loose parts and how to storm and maintain ’em, and all that kind of stuff.
So that’s a fun resource you can use. And now. Using a loose part. This leads me to the bonus tip for summer as an airplane flies overhead. Dig a hole. Yeah. Let your kids dig a hole in your backyard. Yeah, tell ’em, you know, loose parts, shovels, you know, little spades, little trows, whatever. Whatever you feel comfortable with, whatever you got, whatever you can get your hands on to dig.
Could be just sticks, digging in the ground, scratching it. But I mean, how fun is that a project? It is a project, right? I’ve visited lots of centers and I’ve seen lots of centers with, you know, in schools with giant holes and they tell me we’ve been working on this, digging this hole for six months.
You know, it is fun. Right. So, yeah. How about just a hole? Pick a corner of your yard and let your children dig a hole and say, we’re gonna dig this hole all summer, and let’s see what we find. Let’s see what happens. Let’s see. You know what? Yeah. What’s under there? All right. Yeah. Does that sound good? So there’s my tips.
Yay. So basically it’s this idea of how you can. Spend more time, earth speed, connecting to nature that we are all a part of, and the rhythms of life and the feel of grass and dirt and pine cones and yeah. Yeah. Being outdoors, breathing some fresh air, watching the clouds go by and spending a nice summer.
Alright, well. Yeah, have a good summer and I’ll talk to you at the next podcast. Bye.
