By District Manager Tara Burnham

With the appeal of warm houses, steaming cups of cocoa, and modern technology, it can be difficult for parents to convince their kids that bundling up and heading out into frigid temperatures will be fun. Honestly, it can even be difficult to convince adults of that! So, what can make me pass up snuggling in my fluffiest blanket with my cuddliest cat for feeling like my nose is going to fall off and that my fingers are no longer attached to my hands?

In case you haven’t guessed it already, the answer is nature play! Some of my fondest winter memories involved building snow igloos and borrowing icicles from my neighbor for proper decorations. At the time, I did not know that this was actually nature play; I just knew that I was having the time of my life. That raises the question: what exactly is nature play?

Nature play is any activity that takes place outside, is open-ended, and is unstructured. That definition sounds a little less fun than it actually is. What this essentially means is that when kids (or adults!) play outside, the sky is the limit! Well, that and your creativity or research skills. This means that it can include anything from building snow castles to studying animal snow tracks to creating frozen works of nature art.

Besides sounding brr-illiant, this does not explain the true importance behind nature play: encouraging families to form a connection with nature. That connection is going to be what inspires people to want to protect our world, which is kind of important since this is the only one we have. Protecting our natural resources, like soil and water, today means that we are preserving the opportunity for future generations to be able to enjoy all the beauty and fun that winter has to offer. Afterall, it can be a little difficult to make your nature art masterpiece if plants are struggling to grow in polluted areas. Making more environmentally friendly choices in our daily lives can help prevent that.

So, if you are looking for some new winter activities this year to spice things up, try out some new nature play activities. You may find yourself making new connections in nature as well as with the people you take with you; snow volcanoes and winter scavenger hunts have a way of engaging even the frostiest individuals.