Leave What You Find

"I will be the gladdest thing under the sun. I will touch a houndred flowers and not pick one" - Edna St. Vincent Millay

Recreating in the outdoors with kids is a wonderful experience, but it might take a little extra effort to convince them that they must leave what they find for the next person to enjoy. This is tough for many kids to understand, especially when the woods are so full of treasures to collect! Here are a few ways that your kids can still "collect" all the wonderful things that they see:

1) Make a sketch of interesting plants and animals. On your next adventure, bring along a notepad and some crayons and encourage kids to draw the pretty rocks, interesting pine cones and beautiful flowers that they see along the way. When you get home, you can help kids write about the drawings and turn their notebook into a story about their day.

2) Take pictures. Kids will love looking back at all of the wonderful tresures they found on your adventures. If your kids like to collect things, help them organize the pictures into scrapbooks or special folders on the computer so that they can look at their treasures again and again.

3) Bring your binoculars. When kids spot an animal, they might be tempted to run up to get a better look. To avoid frightened wildlife (and disappointed kids) have a pair of binoculars handy to view wildlife from a safe distance.