By Kate Hodges
21st April 2021
DO Sit and Notice
The warmer weather makes spending time outdoors a more relaxed, easier experience. It is, perhaps, a good opportunity to choose a ‘sit spot’. A favourite technique of forest and nature schools, it’s simply a place that your child chooses to spend time at and build a relationship with. Depending on their age, they might start by spending a few minutes at their comfortable place, but build up to more, watching and absorbing the natural world, doing activities, or just contemplating. As the seasons turn, so tiny details change, and your child can record them. Find more about sit spot and nature writing and sketching here and here
EVENT Earth Day
Thursday is Earth Day. First held in 1970, this year it’s an extra special occasion, as it marks the start of the crucial global climate summit. 2021’s theme is ‘Restore Our Earth’, focussing on natural processes and emerging green technology with the power to restore the world’s ecosystem. Join a global live digital event that includes workshops, panel discussions and special performances that cover topics such as citizen science, climate literacy and cleanups. Find more here
EVENT and LEARN Pinhole Photography Day
This Sunday is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, where people worldwide are encouraged to take some time off from the increasingly technological world we live in and to participate in the simple act of making a pinhole photograph. You can head to an event near you, or simply build your own camera. Pinhole photography allows you to take a photograph using a light-tight container with a tiny hole in one side and a photo-sensitive surface within it. You can adapt an existing camera, or make the box yourself – there are some excellent links to help you here. Every picture uploaded to the event’s website will become part of a huge online gallery.
RECIPE, FORAGE and MAKE Dandelion Fun
Golden dandelions are starting to dot our lawns, parks and meadows. Why not pick some and use them to make a vitamin-packed spring tonic to shake off those sluggish winter blues? Find out more about the super-powers of the flower, leaves and roots here. Alternatively, use your foraged flowers to make fragrant dandelion honey earthy dandelion coffee or a very pretty dandelion crown!
EVENT The Big Pedal
Sustrans’ Big Pedal is back! It’s the UK’s largest inter-school cycling, walking and scooting challenge. For ten days, schools compete to see who can get the highest percentage of their staff, pupils and parents cycling, walking or scooting to school. The main benefits are obvious; less congestion and air pollution, kids getting exercise that benefits them both mentally and physically, and a move away from our reliance on the car. The Big Pedal can also impact on schools, giving them the impetus to set up shelters and long-term projects. Why not encourage your school to take part? Download resources and find out more here
What we’ve been reading this week:
Parents Are Sacrificing Their Social Lives on the Altar of Intensive Parenting
“Parents are spending more time than ever with their children because our kids matter very much to us and—hopefully—we do to them. “Childhood has become the last bastion of kindness, the last place where we may find more love in the world than there appears to be,” write the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips and the historian Barbara Taylor, in On Kindness. “Indeed, the modern obsession with child-rearing may be no more and no less than an obsession about the possibility of kindness in a society that makes it harder and harder to believe in kindness.” Yet relying too much on relationships with children to meet our emotional and social needs can be unfair to the children and detrimental for the parent.” Read more here
Found something inspirational to read that you’d like to share? Want to share your lockdown creations with us? Have an idea for things to do? We’d love to hear from you. Email Kate
