Winter Nature Walk

Today I did something completely out of the norm. J was in quiet time as she no longer naps and C was napping in his room. What did I do? I decided to do our first of many winter activities for preschoolers. We went on a nature walk in our back yard.

Why was this out of the norm? Simple.. whenever the kids do their quiet/ nap time, I try to get my house clean or work on some unfinished project. Today however, I unplugged from my cell phone and my laptop. Even the television seemed offensive to my eyes. I quickly grabbed a pair of my husband’s snow pants (I really need to get a pair of my own) threw on a sweater and went to J’s room. I knocked on her door and said,

“Let’s go.”

Obviously the saner one asked, Mommy where are we going? To which I replied, “We are going outside for awhile.”
J then replied, “Oh yeah, that will be fun!” I dressed her in her snowsuit, boots, toque and waterproof mittens then triple checked to see if C was asleep.

The fresh air kissed our skin the moment we stepped outside and it felt so good. While we were outside, I decided we should see what is different now that there is snow all around. Light bulb- Let’s do a nature walk.

On Our Walk

While we were outside walking in our backyard we heard birds chirping. J found this fascinating as it should have been too cold for birds to be singing at the moment. We listened carefully to see if we could spot the bird so we could see it and we did! He was singing in the top of the pine tree and flew right in front of us. Clearly when J asked me what type of bird it was, I simply said it was a black and white bird. I need to Google. However after asking someone at church, I was informed that the bird is called a Chickadee and they gave me a picture of one they were feeding.

Next we decided to go to the back of the shed and J saw a mosquito. Just in case you are not aware, J’s worst nightmare to date had both a mosquito and an ant. J immediately panicked and then said, “Mommy the mosquito should be sleeping- it’s too cold!” All while avoiding the mosquito of course.

We also saw a spider and J asked where the grass went. Instead of simply answering her, we bent down and dug down in the snow until we saw hints of green. She was very happy to know the grass was still there. Another interesting thing we observed was the fact that J’s tomato plant still had a few tomatoes on it but it had the strangest colour.

I encourage you to simply take a walk outside to kick off winter when it arrives for you. It was so refreshing just to have alone time with J outside and to goof around and I would love all my readers to have that feeling. Thanks for walking with me.