A month into the 365 day nature play challenge and I’ve decided it’s time for a bit of a check in on how it’s going. We’ve done so many things this month. I’m trying to remember what I thought it would be like before we started. I’m not sure how much I thought about the detail. I just thought it would be a good idea and we’d feel better for it. I’ve definitely learnt a lot! Here are some observations of what we found:
The immediate environment is the biggest resource.
I had a vision of us visiting lots of farm parks and finding new interesting places in the country. I’m sure that will come with the better weather but what I’ve discovered instead, mainly through necessity, is how much it’s possible to do without going very far at all.
Our garden has been visited more than ever before in January. It’s not a big garden but it has a tree you can climb, willow to cut down, and a chiminea and a fire pit for burning things. We’ve also tempted birds, thrown pumpkins and explored in the dark.
That’s not all though. I’ve found that the areas just beyond the garden are just as important. We’ve found things to do in the front garden (which is tiny); and explored in the lanes and small green spaces behind the house too. The latter have opened up a wealth of possibility, giving us enough space to do things that need a bit more space, like playing with the wind and hunting for potions ingredients.
Local parks and urban spaces have so many hidden opportunities!
We’re lucky to have three small green park type spaces near us and we’ve found them a great place to hang around in when we’re out of ideas. We’ve played with sticks, made a bird whistle and played with trees. On all those occasions we left the house with an open mind and little idea of where we were going. They’ve also played host to the challenge which needed the most preparation time from me – the Treasure Hunt.
We’re really lucky to have the sea and rural areas not far away but generally the places we’ve been, when we have gone further, have been surprisingly urban. We went moon spotting at the Cardiff Bay Barrage, and went to play by the river in Cardiff too. Even our stargazing trip was on a beach with houses all round.
Not walking has become an occasional necessity…
Maybe not the most positive result this, but I’ve found that generally the car has been a huge help. My instinct usually would be to walk rather than drive but with as little as one hour of daylight after school at the start of the challenge I’ve found driving somewhere, doing a challenge, and driving home has enabled us to get further and kept a lot of variety in what we’re doing. Watching the sunrise on the beach and the beach combing in particular I don’t think would have happened if I’d used up all our energy getting there.
But walking can be really fun…
That said, we’ve had a few challenges where we’ve found ourselves walking miles and really enjoying it. Litter picking is the obvious example. I was amazed at how happy B was to walk when she had something to do and an adventure to go on. Her stamina was much better than mine.
Weak winter sun and the cold has an effect
The lack of strong sunlight and warmth has definitely had an effect. It can be really hard to summon the energy to get out (though we usually have felt much better when we have). In particular, the length of the challenges has definitely been affected. Ignoring the shorter challenges curtailed by school hours, there’s been a number of great ones which have failed to last as long as I expect them too. The most we’ve been out, probably when we were taking lights down in the park, has been about two hours. Challenges like the beach combing have lasted far less time than I expected, usually because we get cold. We only kicked stones and splashed in puddles for about 45 minutes in the pouring rain, but it felt like a huge thing when we got home.
There are definitely positive effects
We almost always feel better when we get home in comparison with when we left. I’ve found that we now make time in our day for play, in a way we haven’t always before, and the challenges can sweep away daily stresses really well. If we’re doing a shorter challenge we often find that we then find ourselves making things or creating something afterwards. We’re also far more tuned in to the natural world, watching out for the moon and listening to bird song as we walk about.
It’s hard to pin down but I feel we’re generally more relaxed, less stressed and more ‘in the flow’ of things too. Life feels like it has a better rhythm somehow.
Finding things is really fun
I’m slightly wary of saying this, because there is always a worry that one day it won’t happen, but finding things to do has been really fun and not as stressful as I anticipated. B has been a great help. She likes to do her ideas and has found or thought of lots of things that wouldn’t have occurred to me (like pumpkin smashing). I’ve also found ideas just appearing, often tied in to things noticed on previous challenges. I was worried we’d run out of things in January but instead the thoughts kept coming and they kept their diversity.
Worries
I’ve worked my way through a variety of different worries and I’m sure there are many more to come. Halfway through the month I was concerned that we were focusing too much on playing with trees and deliberately tried to avoid them for a while. Then I was worried that B kept wanting to go back to things we’d done before and I felt we should be doing new things. Then, in total contrast, I wondered if we should try a whole week of similar type challenges and then worried that she was getting bored. Generally I think all these issues will unravel themselves as we go and get more material and more experience. Looking at the blog now I’m amazed at how many different things we’ve done and am actively looking forward to revisiting some of them and trying them again!
Another problem has been getting bogged down in having to achieve one idea and not reacting quickly enough to changes in the weather and our mood. I can spend hours planning a lovely challenge and then the weather changes or B doesn’t like the idea and I get disheartened. We normally then find that it either leads to something new, or we park it, go in a different direction and find something brilliant (sometimes with a lot of arguing). As B says and I have learnt: you can’t predict it too much. You have to see what’s happening and then find a way to join in. One of my favourite challenges, the playground shadows, happened reacting to beautiful sunshine which hadn’t been there an hour earlier.
Working out how to structure blogs
A technical thought to finish on. When we started, I hadn’t really thought much about the form the blog would take. I started off keeping a sort of diary with daily entries but then realised it was not going to be easy to navigate. I’ve re-worked the site now so that it has blog topics and am still working on the best structure. At the moment most of the blogs are quite short but my plan is to extend them as we go and keep returning to them so that they grow with the challenge. Having spent the first few weeks insisting we keep changing topics and making sure each day is a new thought, we now have more material and can linger a bit in places, exploring things we’ve done before and building on ideas. Last week we did our first week long challenge and I suspect we’ll do a few more of those. We’ll continue to follow our instincts, and hope it all finds a form afterwards which is useful.
Going forward into February…
Heading into our second month we can feel Spring round the corner. The birds are beginning to think about nesting and the first bulbs are coming up. I think we’ll find some new topics coming in with the approaching change of season. B and I are both really hoping we can find some snow somewhere too before the warm weather arrives. I’ve learnt to stay on my toes with the challenge and be flexible. Hopefully it will bring some fun things…
and finally…
This is the pigeon that eluded us during challenge 336. I found her at the beach a few days later. We’re going to keep an eye out for her. Hopefully she’ll become a friend.
Leave a Reply