| Subcategories |
 |
Parenting & Families |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
I Love Dirt!: 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature
written by Jennifer Ward
Studio : Trumpeter
by Trumpeter
Release Date : 2008-05-13
Publisher : Trumpeter
Released : 2008-05-13
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9781590305355
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 10 reviews)
List Price : $12.95
Our Price : $7.31
|
|
| |
|
Product Description |
I Love Dirt! presents 52 open-ended activities to help you engage your child in the outdoors. No matter what your location—from a small patch of green in the city to the wide-open meadows of the country—each activity is meant to promote exploration, stimulate imagination, and heighten a child's sense of wonder.
To learn more about the author, Jennifer Ward, visit her website at jenniferwardbooks.com and to learn more about the illustrator, Susie Ghahremani, visit her website at boygirlparty.com. |
| |
|
| |
|
if by activities you mean conversational pieces... |
|
This book does NOT provide activities. It's a list of conversational pieces one could have with their children about nature -- mostly just questions. I gave it 2 stars, since some of the questions were good ones. However, I was expecting actual activities I could do with my kids. I judged this book by the cover... and was disappointed. |
| |
|
Meets a Need for SOME People, Not All |
The book is organized around the seasons. It is designed to provide one nature experience per week of the year, that is, a focused, narrow-topic nature activity is laid out for the family to do.
In my opinion this is for use with children under ten years old. The reason why is it not good for children over ten is that some of the activities are too babyish for older kids (go play in a puddle etc.). The shallow/introductory information is suitable for preschoolers and elementary grade kids. Kids aged possibly nine and ten may ask more questions than this book supplies.
The book basically gives activities to do with young children outside. If the adult knows not much about nature, this book provides talking points and ideas of what to do. Encourage the child to touch the water, swish in the water and see what happens and so forth. There are suggestions to have children do things and then to discuss what happens. Factual information is provided that is good if the adult doesn't know a lot about nature.
The educational talking point claims to fulfill a learning objective. Each objective is at the end of each chapter, such as "stimulates awareness of one's surroundings" and "stimulates caring and stewardship for all living things". I'm not quite sure why the author felt that the parents needed those learning objectives spelled out. Perhaps she intended that public school teachers would use this book and would need that information so they could fit it into their curriculum or into the No Child Left Behind's objectives?
Conversely if the parent or grandparent already knows this basic information then the book's information could be too simplistic and not very useful; it could be considered dumbed down and unnecessary for some adults.
Some of these things end up feeling staged to me. For example if the parent intends to discuss where animals go during the day, but the child doesn't take that bait and run with that topic, you are out of luck with your plans (and this book is all about planning). I sure hope the parent doesn't come down hard on the child for 'not following the plans'. Also if the parent prepares to do X with the child but they want to spontaneously explore other things (which is good in my opinion) the adult may feel frustrated that they prepared or ill-equipped to answer questions about Y.
The people who are more spontaneous in general may feel this book is too limiting, but those people may not feel the need to buy a book of ideas! For me, this book is too limiting and unnecessary, but everyone is different, so perhaps this book is just what you desire.
This is a unique book. If this helps some parents get outdoors with their kids and have the children spend more time in nature then this book will have done its job (even ithe parent doesn't fully use the book as intended or if they don't get to do everything outlined in the book).
It is a very good idea to get kids outside more and outside exploring nature with their children. Hooray for that!! I applaud the author for writing this book which seems to be trying hard to give parents some tools and ideas about how to explore nature with their children (and throw in some education in the process).
|
| |
|
I love dirt too! |
While some think it is so obvious to teach your kids the things in this book, we as a culture forget about a lot of it and this is a nice, cute, compact little reminder to get outside. There are a lot of basic concepts with this like look for colors in nature, look for birds in the sky, but this book does go beyond that and how to help your kids do more than look for birds. It ask, do you see a flying bird, what about a bright bird, a dull bird, that sort of thing. Things that people don't always do.
I think this is an inexpensive, innocent reminder to parents and grandparents to do more than say, "go outside and play", but to go play too. And to do more than play, to learn life lessons by what is going on around you. |
| |
|
Educating and Experiencing Nature Made Easy! |
I love the outdoors and sharing it with my kids, and I loved Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods. So I was eager to read this new paperback that contains 52 easy ways to experience nature with one's kids and educate them about it.
I was really impressed by this book: short chapters divided into four seasons, with suggested activities to experience and concurrent teaching points about biology, physics, and the environment to help the little ones understand what they are seeing and doing.
Over and over again I caught myself thinking, "What a great idea... yea, that's a good one... gee, I didn't know that... I'm going to have to try that one out!"
A great book to read for any parent, grandparent, or anyone else involved in young people's lives. Go get a copy! |
| |
|
Buy this one for every new baby and all of the parents and teachers of young children on your shopping list! |
I LOVE DIRT!, with its enticing cover photograph of a small child headed down a dirt path into the woods, will call to the very audience for which it is intended--adults (parents, grandparents, and teachers alike) who love children and who want to feed their spirits in the best way possible, with time together outdoors in nature. With a foreward by none other than Richard Louv, author of the acclaimed LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS, this book is a compendium of ways to spend that time together in every season. No adult who wants to take a child outdoors need ever again be at a loss for ideas.
Rather than just a book of games or crafts, this book, by an award-winning children's author and elementary school teacher, focuses on meaningful experiential learning experiences. The timeless activity of gathering leaves in the fall grows to become a lesson on gravity. Rather than just watching birds, Ward invites children to keep a journal as Audubon did, sharpening their observation skills as they do.
The trim size invites adults to tuck the book into a pocket, purse or backpack. And you'll want to read it with a small stash of post-it flags at hand, to mark each of the appealing activities you'll want to try out with the children in your life!
|
| |
|
|
|
