Hooray for outdoor play, looking forward to 2010 !

Come join us, the first session begins the first week of June! 

Camp Woods Play

Located in Mendon Ponds Park, southeast of Rochester, NY

 Summer Camp Information         Individual Programs         Links of Necessity and Interest          Writings

   A place where a child's development can find its balance point and an adult can rekindle a bond with nature

Camp Woods Play Day Camp 

    Each day at Camp Woods Play, forest, meadow, and pond's edge conspire to surprise and challenge us. One day's experience builds on the next and imaginative play, games, art, and music grow out of a shared exploration of nature. This will be the camp's sixth season!

    Camp activities are planned via group or individual choice and include going on shorter or sometimes longer adventures, watercoloring and drawing, co-creating puppet shows and nature skits, learning camping and survival skills, or visiting a nearby bird Wild Wings or the Monroe County Mounted Police horsebarns. Of course water play is included on hot days. 

    Most importantly, each day will include a chance to freely play in nature, à la Scandinavian Forest Kindergartens. The forest has been described as an ideal environment for fostering the growth of a healthy imagination and for balancing physical development: Its architecture lifts the spirit and provides a fortress of cooling shade, gentle breezes, and filtered light; Plus, countless natural play objects are scattered all about! Nature provides the perfect playground, and studies show, a comparatively safe one.    

    Camp Woods Play is the inspiration of Marcie Matthews, MsEd, who is trained in outdoor, elementary, and Waldorf education, and has been bringing people and nature together for many years. Her specialty is in helping children's play return to more cooperative and old-fashioned themes using materials found in nature rather than toys.

    Additionally, other talented teachers, CITs, and parents wishing to share their creativity, training, and experience will be helping with music, athletic skills, and arts and crafts.

    Camp central is located in a white pine forest, which remains cooling even on the hottest days and is handy to a nearby park shelter and bathroom. For the younger campers a portable potty is available. Filtered drinking water and organic non- or low-sweet snacks are provided with attention to individual dietary restrictions. 

Presently, we are looking forward to the start of camp this Spring in 2010 
To learn about Camp Woods Play
contact: marcie(at)woodsplay(dot)com, or for a call back call:  585-359-3725 and leave a message

Mixed-Age Format: 
For the most part at Camp Woods Play, people, no matter their ages or abilities, remain together and are supported in respecting and understanding one another's different ways of being. Parents, caretakers, and adult relatives or friends of the family are welcome to participate at no cost and are needed to chaperone if children have special needs, are preschool age, or are still babies. Older children are encouraged to be helpful to younger ones. Such a span of ages creates an extended family-like atmosphere and offers children a chance to develop empathy, learn from one another, and develop the ability to both lead and follow. 


Camp Woods Play Summer Camp Information
Camp dates and schedule are determined at the start of each season
 based on participating families' needs.

 
Schedule: Time and dates to be determined by needs of families, see information listed above, which is subject to change
Cost: Whichever is less:  $4/hour or .00015 x total family annual income/hour, deductions for more frequent attendors 
Siblings: 50% reduction for siblings 
Payment: Daily sign-in/out sheet is for security & billing, weekly bill comes with a return envelope 
Provided: filtered water, and low-sugar juice or herbal teas
Bathrooms: Park potty is near, also we have a hidden portable one, and the nature center has a flush one
Comfort: On hot days the forest is cooler, on coolish days less breezy, and the ecosystem balance keeps bugs to a minimum  
Rain: Day rain is rare and actually wondeful in the pavillion, with heavy thunder it becomes car storytime
Health: Information on outdoor health and safety provided at camp
Injuries: The forest has been proven to be safer than the built environment, but we carry first aid kits and cell phones
Security: cell phones are with teachers; the mounted patrol is nearby
 Contact: Marcie Matthews, at marcie(at)woodsplay.com, phone # and address will be in reply email
Links

Map of Mendon Ponds Park

Forest Kindergartens in Germany

Forest Kindergartens Wiki article

waldorfanswers.org


 Additional Camp Woods Play:Individualized Programs

  • Expanded Woods Play Our travelling nature and the arts program; at Mendon or any park-like setting
  • Nature Walks - The gift of individualized guidance in getting closer to nature; in the greater Monroe area
  • Outdoor Therapy - Guided outdoor play and artistic self-expression for one or a few children or adults
  • Forest Celebrations ! -  Birthdays and all other celebrations - delight and play together in or near nature!
Fees negotiable


 
Writings about forest programs


 The Development of Forest Kindergartens and Schools: The History of Education Out of Doors

            Thinkers who influenced public education in America since its beginnings in the mid-19th Century often promoted children's having daily access to nature. For instance, Kindergarten classrooms were designed to provide access to a garden through an open door, thus the second half of the name - garten. By the1930's, the recognition that education in nature intensified learning, even in subject areas not directly related to the environment, inspired a social expert to coin the phrase “outdoor education” to denote the growing practice of teaching and learning outdoors or in camp settings. 

            But the pendulum swings as we know, and in most educational arenas, especially following WWII, learning aims became narrowed with anxieties resulting in the insistence to try to measure everything. Since the Second World War outdoor experiences, as well as other more open-ended and individualized educational engagements, usually became relegated for use as a reward for time well spent learning indoors engaged in standardized, compulsery-type learning, or in order to "burn off steam." Outdoor education itself would have by and large disappeared if it weren't for the increasing awareness of the environmental crisis in the 1970's. Eventually it became environmental education, which has struggled to fill in the gaps of promoting even appreciation, let alone providing any deep understanding or experience of nature. 

            In the 1950's, a mother, Ella Flautau, quite accidentally began what became the Forest Kindergarten or Forest School movement near her home in Denmark. In Scandinavian culture people never lost an understanding of the importance of nature experiences for human development. This is a region of the world where babies still nap outdoors even in winter to breathe the fresh air and receive natural light (bundled to the hilt of course) and young teens are sent on rites of pasage in the deep forest with only the clothes on their backs and a pocket knife. In Forest School Programs the outdoor space is the classroom and it is the indoors that is reserved for down time. Although using the outdoors for facilitating learning subjects other than ecology or team building is less mainstream today, Forest Kindergartens, serving children from age 4 to 7, or Forest Schools involving older children, are a growing phenomenon world-wide. Most cities in Northern Europe, which are much smaller than our cities, average one to three such programs now.            


Benefits of Forest Kindergartens

           
            The philosophies supporting young children's exposure to nature proceeded a parallel "back to nature movement," in the late19th to early 20th Century, which spawned parks of all kinds, public and private group camping facilities, as well as publicly supported transportation, to help the masses escape the negative effects of urbanization. Although society at large no longer dwells upon notions of the world going mad simply due to mass urbanization, recently, reasearchers have gathered evidence that warrents some of these worries.Because it has taken generations for the effects to reveal themselves we are relatively blind to them. At least one European study comparing children from the same cultural backgrounds and socio-economic classes, but different living conditions with relation to nature, have demonstrated significant detrimental psychomotor effects of urban living. Psychomotor disturbances correlate to learning and psychological issues as well. The widespread effects of nature deprivation, as the very real psychological condition has been named, demands that we somehow get children and others closer to nature again. 

            One can look at outdoor programs, such as forest Kindergartens, as supporting development by relying on the very oldest curriculum, one designed by an ancient relationship with nature. When we venture outdoors our senses and our minds awaken, turning our attention to what matters most to us. In the forest the earth's magnetic field is less insulated from us, the sun's natural light is filtered by leaves not glass or sunglasses, and the air is "freshened" naturally. Moreover, studies have shown that people are more social when outdoors and children play more inclusively with each other: Because much of learning comes through learning from one another, education embedded in an environment that supports more positive social engagement is superior both on educational and other levels. For example, research comparing the long-term effects of psychological therapy of all kinds, rate outdoor experiences with others or alone as the most life-changing in terms of duration of psychological benefit and degree of healing. This is true even when the experience was only intended to be an outdoor adventure experience, not therapy, per se.      

            Benefits to participants of forest education programs include improved confidence, self-reliance, cooperation, tolerance, inquisitiveness, focus, balance, posture, and improved health and fitness. Studies show preschoolers who have attended year-round forest Kindergartens rate highest in school readiness and contentment, compared to attendees of other forms of private and public Kindergartens. Indeed, the natural environment is straight-out a wondrous classroom. Within the shared experience of an ever- changing landscape, lessons more often than not occur of themselves through children's inquisitiveness and activity. Cradled within this learning environment, knowledgeable teachers can interweave literary, musical, and artistic traditions in place-based, hands-on lessons, integrating science and humanities. We do indeed need nature, and not just for pleasure, but in order to become and remain human.It is forest kindergartens and schools, along with other pioneering outdoor education programs and individuals like Ella, that represent some of the hope for the next generations.

               


Literature, music, and movement for children:
T
he Waldorf approach to
helping children flourish!

         
            The Waldorf Connection: Quite naturally the forest education movement merged with existing progressive educational philosophies, especially a form of education referred to as Waldorf or Steiner-based, developed by Rudolph Steiner in 1919 in Studtgart, Germany.  The particular way learning, involving balancing play with observing or engaging in real work,and the beautiful, noble, and the way that the artistic and nature-based curricular content is consciously connected to a child's development, is what signifies a program as Steiner-based. In this curriculum stories, music, games, songs, fingerplays, dances, and instrument playing are seen as essential for balancing development throughout a person's life, but particularly in the unfolding processes of younger children.

             Various forms of language work on all layers of being: guiding and inspiring physical, emotional, and spiritual activity. After all, why were these art forms created throughout all the ages and in every corner of the world? Oral and musical traditions, as well as movement, from one's own or other cultures, can be inserted predictably into the rhythm of everyday life so that the whole family can learn to count on them. Works of music or literature become cultural gems that can help the day's schedule go more peacefully and joyfully and support the harmonizing of inner and outer self. If you like, at home, a good place to begin weaving in music and language experience can be in developing a bedtime and or wake-up ritual including a song, poem, finger or puppet play, and prayer, or blessing in the same order.
           
              


General guidelines for choosing age-appropriate sound and movement experiences


               
                    Babies and toddlers, as a general rule, thrive on repetition of older or ancient-sounding music, as well as, complex and beautiful language spoken in "motherese," (the sing-song way people instinctively talk with babies). Just hearing the sounds and patterns of language alone stimulates everything from head to toe and imparts phonemic awareness. Adding gross and fine movement patterns to recition of rhymes, music, or singing, greatly expands their developmental value. Rhyme play involves moving the whole body as in peek-a-boo rhymes, or for babies, gently moving the child's limbs for them in a playful and predictable pattern while reciting a rhyme such as the one attributed to a Chinese folktale; "Ricky ticky tavi..." Or rhyme play can include movements of just the hands, head, and feet as in fingerplay-type rhymes. In any case, movement combined with reciting and singing is irreplaceable for development of nervous system connections:  At the same time children are discovering fingers and toes, mouth and nose, they can learn how it feels to move these in different patterns. Even simply bouncing a baby up and down an inch or two or rocking them as we sing, or recite, or listen to music, as we instinctively do, helps move the lymph and stimulate the nervous system of the baby in addition to helping them learn to hear the sounds of language and music. The same rhymes, or songs, woven into the familiar patterns of the day such as waking, nursing, changing, eating, going for a walk or a car ride, going to bed, etc. create an atmosphere abuzz with love, anticipation, and gentle stimulation.

                    2 to 4 year-olds continue to be helped by all that the babies should get plus lots of repetition of simple and beautiful nature or life stories, nursery rhymes, and simple folktales that contain repetitive language such as the British folktales: "Henny Penny" and "The Three Little Pigs," or similarly old folktales with repetative text from other cultures. For music, they are much aided by learning traditional children's songs (many songs from older European or traditional cultures are often a little more beautiful than the British ones) and a continuation of the complex music from the Baroche period and earlier.

                   4 1/2 to 7 year-olds still need music, dance, finger plays, but now also both listening to and acting out nature and fairy tales either themselves or through puppets ( all children can act out all parts - its not good to bring too much individual self-awareness activities yet, very young children should not see themselves as seperate from one another or from adults, so children should recite dramatic pieces in unison with only tiny amounts of solo speaking). Children at this age can really benefit from fairy tales from Central Europe or other cultures. They seem  to crave the strong combination of light and dark images in them and the struggles to transcend loss, hopelessness, and scary situations. Additionally these stories are superior for teaching plot structure or what is called story schema in emergent literacy language. Around 7, as they develop the ability to imagine details strongly and relate to specific characters more than others (littler kids accept all characters as part of something whole), fairy tales sometimes can become too scary, although many of the more popular stories are wonderfully romantic and not too gruesome. 

              For children older than 7, if they did not get enough of the above experiences it is not too late - with sensitivity to what their interests are, choose from the above genres of literature, music, and song - just for instance try more complex or humorous finger plays or whole body movements. At tucking-in times, or when there is a tedious wait, children are more open. Additionally, there is a world full of poetry and music that can be enjoyed and learning to recite poetry or theater monologues helps build vocabulary and oratory skills as well as confidence.
 

Early spring poems to move
together with children 
The poems below are From: A Journey through Time in Space and Rhyme: Poems collected by Heather Thomas
 Floris publications, Edinborrough


The Snowdrop
 by Christina T. Owen, from the same book
Try this poem as whole body movement or as a finger play
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I found a tiny snowdrop, blooming in the cold,
  I'll share with you the secret the little flower told:
"Though winter is still here, it hasn't long to stay.
   I came ahead to tell you that spring is on the way."


The River

by Molly De Havas

This next poem is especially suited to moving outdoors or in a larger space. One can choose a slope to move down,
 at first slowly and then picking up speed, serpentine like. 


I spring within a moss-grown dell   
  on rugged mountain land,
 Where only stunted pine trees,
  shallow rooted stand,
And slow I grow with melted snow
  from peaks on either hand

I choose myself the quickest path
  to find my way downhill,
And all the time from every side
  new trickles swell my rill,
From sodden peat and cloudy mist
 I draw the water chill.

I ripple over pebbles,
 over waterfalls I leap,
I speed through narrow clefts where I
  must dig my channel deep,
Then through the valley meadowlands
  in placid curves I sweep.

Small fish live within me,
  in my reeds the wildfowl nest;
Kingfisher, rat and otter
 in my banks may safely rest,
And all poor weary creatures
 are by crystal waters best.

Sometimes my sparkling clarity
 is hidden by a frown,
Of dirt and oil and rubbish,
 as I pass a busy town;
And sometimes little boats I bear
 with sails of white or brown.

At last I reach a shady shore
 whereon great waves foam,
By nature bound, yet ever free,
I need no longer raom,
The path designed I followed
 to the sea which is my home.


      Winter and Spring
 by Trevor Smith Westgarth

     The last spring poem is for alternately stamping and skipping to experience the contrasts of
 weight and lightness, contraction and expansion, and slowness and speed.

  Poem 

Winter gently lays its blanket soft of snow    

While slowly beneathe the bulbs begin to grow    

Spring comes Springing, Laughing, Singing,           

Waking, warming, daffodilling.   

Winter slowly says goodbye        

Primrose, violet - all are growing

Shoots above the earth are showing  

Winter dies          

       Spring's alive!               

Winter dies          

Spring's alive!        


   
Possible Movements

Begin to spiral in, gesturing as if spreading a big blanket of snow.

Continue in a spiral until crouched down

Jump up, skipping outward or 6 year olds and older a somersault

Skipping circling

contract and crouch low

leap upwards using an arm swing to accentuate jumping   

skip about
                                        
slowly crouch down low

leap up

crouch low

Jump up and lift arms

finish by skipping or leaping in a big circle, arms raised 


Summer fingerplays & Poems to memorize and to move to
From:  A Journey through Time in Space and Rhyme:Poems collected by Heather Thomas Floris publications, Edinborrough
 
    
Sunny Day by Molly De Havas

    A bat and a ball we bring to the beach,
    And boats to be sailed on the breezy blue bay.
    We'll picnic and bathe by the big bare rocks,
    And bask in the sun of this beautiful day.

    Molly De Havas

    A bat and a ball we bring to the beach,
    And boats to be sailed on the breezy blue bay.
    We'll picnic and bathe by the big bare rocks,
    And bask in the sun of this beautiful day.

    Anonymous

    Frogs jump.
    Caterpillars hump.
    Worms wiggle.
    Beetles jiggle.
    Rabbits hop.
    Horses clop.
    Snakes slide.
    Seagulls glide.

    Mice creep.
    Deer leap.
    Foxes prowl.
    Dogs growl.
    Puppies bounce.
    Kittens pounce.
    Lions stalk.
    I walk.

    Spelling Verse by Trevor Smith Westgarth

    William was a worrier
    Inquisitive and wild.
    Wanting to always know more
    Than any other child,
    Whining and requesting,
    And insisting that he knew
    Why and what and wherefore
    And whether, when and who,
    And whose was which while which was whose
    And what was where and when,
    And when anybody told him
    He would ask the whole thing again.

    A Mathematics Poem by Michael Motteram

    A circle has lots of possibilities;
    There are many directions to go.
    But with a line that is straight -
    There can only be this way or that!
    If you live from the center of a circle
    you will find your life all about you.
    But should you live on a railway track
    you can only go forward and back

    A Little Finger Game by EJ Falconer

    Here is a house with a pointed door
    (index fingers and thumb put together)

    Windows tall, and a fine flat floor
    (all finger tips touching thumbs hidden, then both palms flat side by side)

    Three good people live in the house
    (hold up three tallest fingers)

    One fat cat, and one thin mouse
    (hold up thumb and little finger)

    Out of his hole the mousie peeps
    (little finger through other hand's fist)

    Out of his corner the pussie cat leaps!
    (thumb jumps over opposite fist)
   
    Three good people say "Oh, oh, oh!"
    (Three fingers up as before)

    Mousie inside says; "No, no, no!"
    (Little finger draws back inside of fist)

    Anapest by Anonymous

    (This poem can be moved with two short steps and a long one).

    I am strong, I am brave, I am valient and bold,
    For the sun fills my heart with his life-giving gold.
    I am helpful and truthful and loving and free,
    For my heart's inner sunshine glows brightly in me.
    I will open my heart to the sunbeams so bright;
    I will warm all the world with my heart's inner light.

    Morning Verse by Anonymous

    Oh what a joy is the morning sun
    Shining with love now the night is gone -
    See how it gleems, feel the earth grow warm,
    Flowers are springing to greet the morn.
    Birds they are singing in feathered flight,
    Beasts they are moving with all their might,
    And in my heart do I truly know
    Nature and I by sun's grace must grow.


    Molly De Havas

    Good morning dear earth
    Good morning dear sun
    Good morning dear Trees and Flowers every one
    Good morning to you and good morning to me







                        Guiding development: The following article is a more complete description of what I can often only share in part with parents and educators I encounter. It is advice about the subtle ways in which we accidentally rush children's development academically, physically, socially, and spiritually, and put them at risk of not reaching their potentials as human beings. Everyone who is around children can benefit children and themselves by learning to observe and appreciate the innate wisdom within the developing human being.

                        Today, children grow up within very
different physical and social environments than they are designed to develop in. Thus, it is harder for the self-developing capacities of the child to find the right outer experiences and social milieu to reinforce optimal inner experience. The more one adjusts the experience of the child to the child's developmental needs, the better one begins to see this unfolding for its genius, and the more one feels hesitant to interfere very much with it or to try to direct or rush it.  
                       
Teaching astronomy to children
by Marcie Matthews
        Vernal equinox, means spring's equal night, and refers to the astrological start of spring when day and night are of equal length all over the earth. This equal night happens exactly twice per year, and is referred to as autumnal equinox in the fall. During both equinoxes, the earth's constant tilt toward north in the direction of the North Star, Polaris, along with its orbital position, make for an exciting moment when both northern and southern hemispheres are, relative to one another, equidistant from the sun. At all other times of year, the earth's axis is tilted either toward or away from the sun, so that one hemispheres is nearer and one is farther away, establishing summer or winter and relatively longer or shorter days.

Learning comes best from the inside out:

        We can often only fully comprehend such complex concepts when adults, and then, in a gesture of enthusiasm and kindness,  may try to explain them to the little folks in our midst. It is very hard for us grown-ups to resist today's
modern mission to introduce children to concepts or skills as soon as possible to give them an edge or in order to share with them our eureka experiences. However, when children are asked to grapple with notions whose complexity reaches well beyond their current imaginative powers, develop skills beyond their physical abilities, or understand moral notions that do not take into account their maturity levels, it can make them feel anxious, rather than confident, about learning and maturing. It can also interfere with learning in a similar vein as has been demonstrated in identical twin research studies whereby one twin, who is deliberately taught to do something such as climb stairs, eventually falls behind in that skill as compared to the twin who learns it through experience. In other words, well -intentioned hurrying can limit abilities later.
Indeed rushing development is never advisable, but especially worrisome during infancy. For example, friends of mine who had dutifully towed their baby and eventually toddler everywhere they went in order to properly expose her to new experience (promoted by child development experts during the 1990's to promote early speech - falsely conected to higher potential), caused their child to indeed speak very early. Her first sentence was famously; "When go home?"Another mystery and depth of human development is that it requires important pauses and even brief regressions when the developing person's whole inner self is reorganizing.     

Fancy talk'n may develop ahead of fancy think'n:

        One of the most common reasons for unintentional rushing of children's development comes because of the amazing ability most children have to learn language if provided the opportunity - but don't let their language abilities fool you! Young children often acquire complex language skills before they can understand complex ideas. Because of this, we adults and older children easily fall into the trap of conversing with young children as if we expect them to understand complex concepts or the ups-n-downs and ins-n-outs of life in a mature manner. In addition, young children are sometimes very observant and their intuitive wisdom can be uncanny, but we should not mistake these tender abilities for adult reasoning. If we do overestimate their reasoning, we can easily fall into unfairly reprimanding them if one day they seem to know better and the next day they prove not to - in truth they often never knew better.

        In addition
, because children's language can make them sound like "old souls," we may rely on young children as confidants or expect them to make too many decisions on their own. It might feel as if it imparts respect, but it is better to rely more on modeling moral behavior and decision-making and let children learn quietly about right and wrong by our example, not necessarily through expectation, logical debate, or explaination.

        In older cultures, renowned for their strong but gentle ways with children, adults recognize when taking a young child by the hand or picking them up and leading them toward positive activities and away from inciting, confusing, or hurtful ones, is better than explaining or requiring them to behave according to adult logical or moral understandings. If one does need to explain things to a child around age 6 or younger, in general let answers and experiences be wrapped in beautiful stories, which they can visualize and relate to, and that lack what might be for them harsh realities.

Early learning with a stress on one subject may slow learning in other subjects and learning in general:

        "But they ask for it!" Yes, they do. It is easy to also be led astray by little children themselves as to their readiness for learning certain things: At very young ages they pick up notions about the relative importance society or a significant other places on "getting" certain things or acquiring certain skills, and children may impatiently request help. An obvious example is young children's engaging in sports or other competitive activities, organized by adults, to live out the adults' needs for success in things that they themselves would love to be better at.  Yes, young children often seem to quickly adjust and look forward to the adult-like organized activity or learning, but remember that dogs used for fighting quickly learn to love it, underneath however is an animal afraid of its own shadow.

        One of the most prevalent examples of a disproportionate learning focus is the current culture around early reading. Society's attitudes toward early literacy, narrowly defined as reading and writing, provoke both anticipation and anxiety. Reading and writing are indeed important skills, but they are less essential to development of later literacy than exposure to a rich, repetitive oral tradition, involving open-ended conversation and listening to and repeating rhymes, stories, jokes, songs, and games, and should be stressed in early education only if oral language is lacking or children are not read many storybooks at home. Longitudinal studies done at Harvard have shown literacy abilities by age 14 are most significantly effected by the quality (and interestingly not quantity) of conversation children engage in with care givers. Text-based literacy requires the simultaneous application of dozens of mental skills, and once learned it is then utilized constantly, audibly effecting speech, and possibly reducing frequency and intensity of other types of experience. Literacy education's dominance during young childhood surely hinders balanced development of the senses, beginning the modern tendency for humans to be too visually centered, like predators.  If you feel anxious about your child's being ready for future academic or career success focus on using richer language and using bigger words with them, and remember the old adage: "Once children begin to read, they stop reading from the book of nature."

The pitfalls of the "Why" stage:

        Concerning children's self-developing efforts, you might quip again that: "Well, they are always asking why." Young children do go through "why" stages, but they are practicing the language of thinking, as much or more than they are needing to abstract about reality. Also, sometimes what they are really wanting is conversation or interaction rather than actually wanting to know the whole darn complicated truth about everything.
Sometimes persistent "whys?" are simply a verbal form of fiddling with a caregiver's hair or earlobe. Of course children want to begin to see the connections between things, but the best response may be a story that relates aspects of reality within the context of the child's developing mental framework. In other words, answering their persistent whys should be a challenge for us to sensitively and humorously weave increasing doses of reality into their imaginative world in a way that fortifies it without toppling it.

The child is always right - in a way - at least we should let them feel they are

        Along with asking questions, children
may act on their own out of their developing conceptualizations and frequently try explaining their own ideas about the way the world works. They are beginning to practice finding answers on their own and, of equal importance, learn the language of thinking. Practice in using their own words to explain ideas is the externalization of an inner activity that forms a two-way dynamic; actually fortifying the ability to think. In this way developing the "language of thinking" often precedes actually understanding things. Ideally, adults should listen and respond to young children's ideas while avoiding pointing out the gaping holes in the logic (unless safety is an issue). Focus on introducing new language by gently or playfully rephrasing a young child's ideas in a slightly more sophisticated way, as if we are asking a question we don't quite know the answer to ourselves. In this way we are modelling the language of thinking and encouraging creative pondering: both vital areas for developing cognitive and metacognitive abilities later. Insisting on all the facts being straight during this process can easily get in the way of a child's learning to think things through on their own. If it helps, try to think of listening to your child's reasoning as explaying, rather than explaining. Caregivers who are confident that children will one day be very bright, leave more space for children to be technically wrong, fully expecting that children will eventually figure everything out.

        If a child is overly concerned with understanding everything, it can be a warning sign that they are feeling stressed in general about life and their ability to control their experience. There is a correlation between over-intellectualizing and heightened anxiety. 
Remember: possibly the single greatest contributor to a higher IQ, as opposed to superficial smarts, is confidence in one's ability to figure things out, and human confidence is fragile: correcting a child's understandings too much can diminish confidence in thinking and undermine the child's developing abilities.
   
   

Children mistake the earth for a part of heaven:

        Another aspect of early childhood requiring sensitivity and patience, is how to best handle the connection young children have, or seem to have, depending on one's beliefs, to the divine. Indeed little children seem to happily mistake the earth for a sort of heaven populated by adults and teens whom they mistake for enlightened spiritual beings - "Who, me, deity? - no way!" Ironically, it is adults who often find that children seem, or are, nearer to the spiritual realm. We need to honor these capacities and neither make too much, nor too little, of them. Unfortunately, young children's comments and questions usually attest to a wisdom that will soon go underground for much of their childhoods and young adulthoods. According to anthroposophical understandings, this happens in order for them to reach a stage whereby they will come to rely almost purely on logic, devoid of much intuition, to solve problems. Human development then proceeds further and, hopefully, as mature adults, we have learned to use intuition and intellect in concert with one another, otherwise known as, true intelligence.

       
To help children feel protected by the forces of goodness, we should strive to minimize irreverent or materialistic experience or conversation around them: Think about the proverbial village that it would take to raise a child. It would be ideally, in most ways, an old-fashioned village, if we were to manifest it as best we could in our own children's lives. It would be simple and reverent of nature, culture, and the spiritual or communal, rather than distorted by the influence from the modern, materialistic, marketplace world. As an antidote to the irreverence that abounds everywhere, children can strongly benefit from a spiritual or religious practice and education at home or within a community. Caregiver or community led spiritual experience, celebrations, stories, and rites of passage, will help children connect with what is right and good and provide stories about superheroes and superpowers that surpass the commercially created ones. Here again delaying learning to decode language by just a year or two protects young children from media and advertisements, as well as bumper stickers and T-shirts.

        Around age nine children often go through a crisis of disenchantment when they become aware that not all adults are good and wise and that they themselves are not in some sort of heaven anymore. This should be as gentle a transition as possible, but because we are often excited to see our children finally "wake up" we again may unintentionally and prematurely push them to jumping from age 9 to 27. Replacement of children's heavenly or magical interpretations of life should be a slow process.


       


Overstimulation in general, and video stimulation specifically, causes hormonal, neurological, and emotional changes:

        Concerning children's enthusiasm toward modern culture you may cry once again; "But, they ask for it!" Yes, and with noisy tantrums if it is denied. We human beings are drawn toward what frightens or stimulates or especially overstimulates us. In ancient times there must have been natural checks and balances on the availability of the outrageous, but in today's world our innate drives cause us to be our own worst enemies. Somehow, within our inborn desire to seek out novelty and adventure within a natural landscape may lie the increasing threat of society's demise. To satisfy our unlimited desires for stimulation, we may indeed be traumatizing ourselves or at the very least dulling our perceptive abilities. To save ourselves we need to continue efforts to reconsider what sort of cultural experience and "landscapes" we expose children, and ourselves, to.

        What the world appears to be and to value on the outside fortunately or unfortunately quickly becomes what our children's nervous systems, bodies, and psyches adapt to. In choosing appropriate experiences for children, Rudolf Steiner spoke about
learning to decipher for children the difference between  fantasy and the fantastic. Fantasy involves imaginative stories told orally, through theatre, or through books, and or activities that connect experiences of nature or culture with values and ideas that promote a beautiful, loving, and sustainable connection to the world. With fantasy there can be elements of surprise, adventure, and a contrast of light and dark, but it is kept securely in check and only there to accentuate the story. Fantasy experiences should involve using the imagination actively through mostly listening, not passively through mostly watching. When in the mid 90's Switzerland gave in to pressures to allow the big European networks to televise within their borders, they did it knowing that studies show it would reduce the age of puberty on average by 1.5 years, thus lowering the IQs of its citizens due to loss of playtime. And yes, it doesn't take that much television viewing per week to have that effect plus other detrimental ones on the developing brain.


        Try to observe a child's deeper reactions to experiences and stimuli: What for
instance is their mood and energy afterward or the next day or days? It is superior to use the years before they are 15 or 16 to strengthen their connection to what is old-fashioned and nature-based, and limit experience with modern media. Try not to worry about them not being cool n' media-hip when they are teens - eventual exposure to all things modern is inevitable and awareness of such things ultimately necessary. In their later teens or early twenties, if you have aimed for fantasy not the fantastic, your children will strike other children or young adults as truly hip - able to make fun and not just consume it, and able to stand up to political, peer, and marketplace pressures. How to help them be cool in a healthy way? Children can become plenty "cool" from working steadily with hands, head, and heart together to serve others and to create their own fun.


Thank you for your kind attention so far. So, finally, back to astronomy....

        It is wonderful to explain to children younger than age 11 or 12 that vernal is derived from the Latin ver meaning spring, while autumnal relates to fall, equi equal, and nox night, and to say; "Today, is a special day: Day and night are of equal length!" telling them a nature or folk story about this or if they are older letting them count the seconds down to sunset, or noting setting times of consecutive sunsets to observe the trend, but to explain in detail without corresponding experience is abstracting for them, rather than letting them have real experience and some day enjoying constructing understanding themselves with minimal assistance, when they are ready. Through observation and the arts strive to learn along with them about why the seasons and sunset and sunrise are so beautiful and at midday go ahead and rejoice in the sun at its zenith!

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The harmonious integration of the senses, emotions, and thinking: All of these aspects of the developing child should evolve in concert with one another - with the child as the head conductor! We adults are here to listen, and bring refreshments, decide when its playtime, break time, and work time, as well as guide, challenge, cheer, and occasionally correct. But mostly, we are to patiently and lovingly support the unfolding rhythm, dynamic, and beauty of a child's individual song as she or he gradually joins the world's chorus.