Last Child in the Woods

After reading a few articles by Richard Louv and looking at his website, I’m currently right in the middle of reading ‘Last Child in the Woods: Saving our children from Nature-deficit disorder".  It makes for fascinating reading and shows the profound difference that being outside in nature makes to children.

I’ve also been following Tricia at Little Eco Footprints and Lisa at 5 Orange Potatoes with their Great Outdoors Challenge. We’ve always made an effort to get Little B outside but now I have taken on the challenge in earnest.

The aim is for unstructured outside play in nature landscapes. We play a lot in our backyard which is mostly grass but some trees, Granny B’s backyard which is full of lush green foliage and places to run, hide and explore as well as playgrounds and nature reserves.

But the one place we haven’t explored yet is the Dandenong Ranges National Park. We really have no excuse as it surrounds us on two sides (our suburb not our house). So a 5 min drive has us in the middle of a beautiful forest. So I’m aiming to get Little B out there more, to walk the trails and investigate the wildlife and plants.

We are also in the process of looking at primary schools for Little B (deciding whether to keep him home until 6, but that’s another post) and have our eye on a local one that promotes itself as having nature scapes playgrounds as well as veggie and native gardens etc for the children to explore.

Going outside when its sunny or even cloudy is easy but now weather is going to be no barrier. I’ve ordered a PVC free raincoat from CalunaLoves, we have the gumboots and an umbrella and we are off. We also use Slicks pants so that Little B can stay a bit dry in this freezing cold weather.

Little B jumping in puddles :-)