Andrea Seider Tinkergarten

class was a hit! These explorers gave me so much joy this season and I hope they took away just as much. Teaching them to lean into their own innate creativity and to learn through play is my absolute favorite!

BENEFITS OF PLAYING IN A CREEK

There are so many incredible benefits to taking kids creeking. Not only do they get plenty of fresh air and sunshine while creeking, but they get to wade through the cool water, catch minnows, tadpoles and crawdads, hunt for fossils, climb over/around obstacles, skip rocks, build dams, observe wildlife and connect with nature in a very personal way. When kids go creeking, they’re part of nature – they’re surrounded by it, immersed in it, touching it and exploring it in ways that they can’t by standing on the sidelines.

Creeking also helps kids in a multitude of other areas – walking through a creek helps with balancing and stability (rocky creeks are unstable terrain), encourages problem-solving (how to get from one side to the other), teaches about life stages of nature (from tadpole eggs to live bugs to dead fish) and prompts kids to ask questions about nature and the environment that they might not otherwise think of.

My 4 year-old asks some of the most amazing questions while we’re creeking, like: Is this a dinosaur tooth? Is this the same kind of water that’s in the river? Do fish eat rocks? Why is the water cold? What kind of fossil is this? Where do frogs go at night? Why does that tree bend like that? Is that a crocodile? Where can we find a snake? If so, can we take it home with us?

What do you love about creeks?

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Having fun with our “squiggles”.

The squiggle! So many ways to show our divergent thinking and imagination!

Clay creations! Went on a bug hike then came back to create some big friends of our own!

Had such a good time capturing colors that I forgot to take many pictures! 🙈 these kiddos had a great time mixing and mashing natural paints to create a masterpiece together!

Creating designs for those we love!

How Not to Cheat Children . . . Or Anyone In1971, the now defunct magazine Landscape Architecture published an article by an architect named Simon Nicholson entitled...

This was such a fun one! for the ones we love. So much creativity put into this one!

Harnessing their focus to create something beautiful together. Sometimes our tinkering is high energy and messy, other times it is calm and focused. Both have a place in a child’s play.







                                 

Happy earth day!