Outdoor Mama

I wanted to post a little something about ClubMAW, a newer site of which I am a part. It's a very nice community with lovely women, designed to be a meeting place for other lovely Mothers And Wives around the world.
The site is set up into "parts of the house" divided for different discussions. For example, you can post about feeding your family in Your Kitchen. Get it?
I am the MAWderator for, you guessed it, Your Back Yard, where we discuss outdoor activities and recreation, etc. Nearly anything goes.

This site, www.ClubMAW.com, is just getting started. Please drop by and take a look around, and come and visit me "out back!"

Some kids can name every type of truck. Some kids know each and every Polly Pocket doll name.
My kids are learning their nature, which my husband says makes them look like big nerds, but I think makes them look pretty cool.
A few months ago, we were taking a walk at a local state forest preserve and met up with a friend who frequently walks there for exercise. We decided to do one loop together, and because we usually point out plants and animal signs along the way, my kids (then 3 and 5), did their normal thing.
"Hey, mom, pointy leaves equals red oak!" "Ooh, jack in the pulpit!" "Did you hear that blue jay?" And so on.
Needless to say, she was very impressed that a three-year-old knew more than she did.
But our favorite (and the most impressive plant in their eyes) is the spicebush. Found in rich, damp soils all over the eastern US, it has these spectacularly scented leaves. It's a lemony scent, and you can use the leaves, berries and twigs to make a tea. (Just make sure it's from an unsprayed spot and use lots of honey to sweeten it!)
We're not big wild tea drinkers, but every time we walk this loop each kid is allowed to grab one leaf to carry and squish up in their fingers. They sniff it every few steps until by the end of the trail it's just a green gooey pulp and their little hands smell like lemon for hours.

I always wonder if that friend is still walking that loop for exercise, and if she ever grabs a spicebush leaf when she walks by. I know we can't pass on up without getting our lemony fix.

Visit this site for more information on the spicebush:
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/forestry/trees/spicebush/tabid/5419/Default.aspx

At a recent outdoor weekend event for women, I learned that the opossum, our country's only naturally occurring marsupial, has the lowest brain to body size ratio of any animal. That means that it's brain is extremely tiny for it's body, and that it only knows how to eat, sleep, and make more opossums.

It has also apparently been too dumb to catch on to evolutionary traits, has a mouth full of different teeth even though it doesn't use them all.

So why am I posting this wonderful info here? Three reasons. For one, you can use these facts to entertain your children next time you see an opossum. Secondly, this new found trivia also confirms the fact that my dog is indeed not the dumbest animal on earth. Thirdly, to help coin the phrase "O-brain" as in "Opossum Brain." It will sound much better than "pea brain" in public when I'm yelling at my son, who incidentally is also off the hook for "world's dumbest animal" although I'd bet it'd be a close race given his behavior in the grocery store last week.

Is it bad that I force my kids to love what I love?
I've always been a rock head. I love rocks, always have, always will. That's why I used to have a piece of gravel named Rocky (I know, creativity was not a childhood strongpoint) that I kept in a decked-out shoebox. And it's also why I spent my college years earning a degree in geology.
Now that I'm a professional Mama and my rock hammer is officially packed away, I need to live vicariously through my children and take advantage of their minimal interest in the science.
So it is with great excitment that I drag them around the state, to everywhere within a 75-mile radius that offers nature/rock programs for children.
Today was no exception, and I swear, by the time my children start kindergarten, they'll know more than their teachers do when it comes to rocks.

Here's a simple activity that I've done at home with my kids. It's perfect for the next time they bring home or dig up yet another rock...

Make a collection -- and catalog it.
(Ages 5+, younger with lots of help and patience)

Index cards are plentiful, cheap, and durable. Tell each child to choose one rock if they've brought home more than one.

On one side of the card, have them draw a picture of the rock. Knowing kids, they'll grab their favorite color and make a circle. For this reason, you may need to help them out, and guide their budding scientific minds.

When drawing the rock, have them look at two simple features: shape and color. Is it flat? Round? Jagged? Is it dark brown? Pink? Speckled?

Once the picture is drawn, write out on the other side of the card the characteristics that your children see. Have them describe it with their own words and ideas. Maybe it looks like Elmo's nose, or in the case of my three-year-old son, it might just look like a piece of dog poop. Whatever they say, you write. It's how they'll learn to make observations and be creative about their findings.

This rock and card can be filed together, or if your kids are like mine, they like to actually play with their rocks. Here's a simple tip for making their rock collection official. Make a very small mark with Wite-out on the bottom of the rock. Once that is dried, label the rock with something simple-- perhaps just a letter-- with a permanent marker. And then mark the same letter on the index card. Index cards can then be stored easily together, as well as the rocks.

This exercise is also a great exercise in critical thinking for budding brains-- now if only they wouldn't pick up 14 pieces of brown sandstone...