explorer house

i am a big nerd. i've always known it. my love of words and asking for my own huge hard backed dictionary when i graduated from high school may have betrayed me, or maybe it was the subscription to archaeology magazine back when i was 11 that let the cat out of the bag? however you want to label it, i know that i have a major appetite for learning and it started young. one of the things i love most about parenting is being able to openly dork out and indulge in learning about everything all over again through your children. my best moments with my kids are when we are out exploring and learning together. i try to position myself not so much as teacher but more like the tour guide, opening doors and answering questions as they arise. most of all, i've learned that sparking the fire and then stoking it is all it takes to awaken a child's interest in just about anything. bring up a subject, ask some questions, provide some tools to learn about it, and voila, your kid is naturally "learning" and seems to be having fun doing it.

in this vein, i wanted to share a project cleo and i worked on last week. we have been reading a lot about bugs and plants and gardening, and knowing that we are going to be spending a good portion of our summer out working "our land", i thought i'd create a space for her to explore and appreciate the nature in our own backyard. we were lucky to have inherited a great playhouse when we bought this house but it was full of run down garage sale toys and wasn't seeing a ton of use. inspired by the idea in roots shoots buckets and boots to create an explorer kit for your child when they are in the garden, i decided to turn the playhouse into cleo and flynn's explorer house. it is a place for them to observe nature, do experiments, keep collections, and record their findings. i stocked it with a measuring tape and ruler to measure bugs or how tall a plant is, magnifying glass and glass plate for observing bugs, a paintbrush for dusting off rocks, jars and envelopes for collecting specimens, flashlight for night time exploration, nature notebooks, labels, and colored pencils, etc. we are working on creating some homemade field guides from color copies i made at the library from books about birds, insects, and plants. the cherry on top of the project was that i let cleo paint a lovely nature mural on the wall by her desk and this was probably the most fun aspect--watching her amazement at actually getting to paint right on the wall! i could just see the liberation shining in her eyes.

since we set up the explorer house, cleo has been out there every day for a good hour or two, sketching, collecting and trying to keep flynn out because "he isn't a scientist yet." it has been a huge hit and i love that it opens up the pathway to learning about nature in such a hands on, organic, and personal way.

so here i am, nerd 1 working on raising nerds 2 & 3!