A couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to host a nature play station for my neighborhood social. It was a sweltering hot day, one of the hottest this summer has seen, and I was doubtful of the amount of participation I would see at my little table over the afternoon.
I put out my baskets, stamp pads, and natural materials, hoping this would look inviting enough to lure a child or her family away from the ice cream and the bouncy house to take some time to interact with natural materials and make beautiful art. (The kids had the opportunity to do "nature stamping" using various materials like leaves and flowers to make prints on paper by stamping them on large stamp pads.) What ensued over the next four hours went well beyond my biggest hopes.
One of the challenges of setting up a good play station, nature play or otherwise, is to allow the children who participate to take ownership of their own activity. One simple rule for setting this foundation is to provide lots of choice. Another not-so-simple rule is to avoid directing or instructing children on how to do the activity. In the end, it should be the child's project, not yours. It is easy to want to drive the activity, especially when you've spent time preparing materials and think your idea is particularly amazing, but I have learned time and again that when you let children lead, amazing things unfold, and more authentic learning takes place.
I am a teacher at heart, I always will be. I hoped that children and families would walk away from my station with a few extra moments of appreciation in their hearts for the beauty of nature, captured in simplicity. I also secretly hoped that this activity might spur children and their families to look at the nature around them a little differently, a little more closely; to discover the intricacies that make something like a leaf or a flower so amazing.
To my surprise, visitors arrived at my table right away. I had no time to take pictures beforehand, and I was so enraptured by the observations and interactions I was having with the children and families as they stayed and created that I didn't have time to take a single photo until after the social had ended and I was cleaning up!
In the aftermath, as I wiped away inky fingerprints from the chairs and tablecloth and gathered together the now brilliantly colorful natural materials, I couldn't help by smile from deep within my heart as I remembered how the mess was created. I have never minded a good mess, and this was one of the best ones in my recent memory. Not because the kids were unruly, simply because they were having a great time, and making the project their own. They were involved.
At one point, a group of boys approached the table and found the stamp pads to be the perfect size for hands. They had a great time creating hand prints, and we talked about how their hand print is it's own kind of "nature print". They seemed pleased. Later, along the same lines, a little girl was experimenting with various leaf prints and making hand prints of her own. Staring intently at the paper she said, "My hand is like a leaf!", referring to how her handprint made wrinkles and veins much like the leaf print had. It was one of those magical moments that I hoped would stay with her always, this innate connection to the natural world.
As the afternoon wore on, my materials began to look a little ragged (ink stamping can be hard on even the sturdiest of plant matter). A little girl who had stayed to make many prints earlier with her mother stopped by on the way home to bring me a tiny weed with beautiful flat seeds. She handed it to me with timid pride and her mom told me she had found it and thought it might make a nice addition to my collection. I gratefully accepted her perfect offering and placed it in a basket with care. Not long after, a group of older girls revisited my station. I apologized for the slim pickings, and immediately one of the girls said "We can find you some new materials if you want!". I was so thankful for their thoughtfulness and also thrilled because, much like my first offering, this showed that children were making connections and looking closer at the nature around them. They came back with different kinds of helicopter seeds and bark, and I delightedly placed them amongst the other materials.
At the end of the day I realized I had barely noticed the heat. I was so caught up in the experience, and I had the children and their families to thank for it. Where I had hoped to inspire a special moment with nature for them, they had in turn provoked so much appreciation and sentiment in me. I will never look at a handprint the same way again, nor will I underestimate the engagement of children and their families in a simple activity, even on a hot day.
I got out my camera and took some pictures of the aftermath (pictured throughout). As I look back on these photos now, they are so much more representative of the afternoon than the pristine arrangement I would have documented at the beginning of the event. My only regret is that I was not able to get pictures as the event was occurring, but perhaps, like many things, these moments are best recalled in the mind and heart anyway.
