Birdwatching with young children

Daylight savings started today. Spring is here, downunder. This is the time of the year I wake up at around 5.30am to a chorus of birds, singing in our otherwise quiet suburb, only to be all silent again at around 6 am. Sometimes I get up and have a dip in our spa pool, watching with anticipation the sky above to see if is going to be a blue and sunny day or not, at the same time enjoying the crispy air and listening to the tui in the neighbour’s tree. Sometimes my six year old daughter joins me, and it is a time we thoroughly enjoy together. This brings me to birdwatching with children.

Today’s life is hectic for our children with school work, afterschool activities and peer pressure. At our preschool, we show the children how to take a deep breath, slow down, and wonder at the beauty of nature. One of the activities we use is introducing them to birdwatching. We have a small park next to our preschool with some bushes bordering to our garden. The birds like this little green dot in our suburb and we regularly have little wax-eyes , yellowhammers and tui visiting the trees. This often happens during our lunchtime, when we are having our lunch with the children up on our deck. The garden will be quiet which makes it a good time for the birds to visit and take advantage of the spilled bird seeds or chicken pellets our pets have left behind.

The blackbirds especially love to have a little splash in our little pond, which we created out of a children’s play water trough.The children and I will try to quietly move a bit closer and watch the birds as they enjoy their splash, their feed or their bath in the sand and dust.

The driftwood logs in our garden provide a great spot for the children to quietly sit and watch.

Birdwatching is a great nature activity to do with young children. You can hang a bird feeder just outside the window and show the child how to sit quietly so that the birds won’t be afraid or you can take them outside into your backyard, your local park or to the forest. Young children are very capable of sitting quietly and watching. You don’t need much, except for a birdguide and a pair of binoculars. We use Andrew Crowe’s: A Mini Guide to the Identification of New Zealand's Land Birds, which is excellent for the younger ones as it small with not to many pages and basic with clear pictures. The birdwatching.com website has a good introduction to birdwatching with children. I also came across this article Birdwatching helps children become nature-wise by Karen Stephens.

There is something magic about watching a bird in its natural environment, going about its business. What is magic too, is watching your child making that connection with nature when they sit quietly, and are mesmerized by the awe and wonder that has been awakened.

Watch birds with your children. You'll be giving them a lifetime ticket to the theater of nature. - birdwatching.com

The monarch butterflies have arrived

What a beautiful spring day it was today, crystal clear sky with a bright sun and warm temperatures. We were all feeling much more energetic after what feels like a long, wet winter. The pear tree, in the garden at our preschool, is now in full bloom. The apple tree is nearly out in blossom too. And the first monarch butterfly visited our garden today.

We have monarch butterflies in our garden every year and the children are always very excited when the first butterfly visits our garden after their winter absence. The children always spot these creatures first, to my delight, as it means they are using their senses. They excitedly came and told me about the monarch butterfly and pulled me outside. “I had to be quiet”, they said, as they crawled up as close as they could. We watched the butterfly fluttering from plant to plant until it settled on one of our swan plants (milkweed). The butterfly was most likely laying its eggs. We will watch the swan plants closely over the next few weeks, expecting some very hungry caterpillars. Watch this space …

Yes, there is a weta in the hotel

Guess what, today a weta has made itself at home in our weta hotel at preschool. We are all so excited. As soon as the children discovered the weta they came running back inside, “Anja, Anja, there is a weta in the hotel.” I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting it to be a weta, rather another crawly, but the children were right, was a weta. I should not have doubted them, after all our children are budding entomologists. They walk around with a magnifier and an insect guide and they stop for every little creature they find on their path.

The other day we were digging a shallow grave for one of our beloved budgies who had sadly passed away. This took us all morning as we had to stop for every worm we found in the earth. The children carried every single worm one by one to another corner in the garden. How more caring can they become?

Helping our insects, a weta hotel

When a child leaves our preschool, after having been with us for 2 or 3 years, they often give us a thank you present. Recently, we received the most original, fitting present from one of our children, a weta hotel for in our garden.



A weta hotel is a block of native wood, ours is made from macrocarpa, with tunnels drilled in it and covered with an acrylic viewing panel. The weta is only found in New Zealand. This native insect is so old, it has outlived the dinosaurs. Weta are large, by insect standards, but some are enormous and are amongst the heavies insects in the world. At our preschool we find weta in our garden, under logs, behind rocks, even in our gumboots!



The children at our preschool enjoy exploring our garden, looking for insects and other crawlies. They find worms, slaters (woodlice), centipedes and all sorts of invertebrates. One of our children in particular loves being outside in our garden. He will spend a long time, with his little spade and magnifier, digging and foraging for insects. It is amazing what he discovers in a morning. We often gather around his “catch”, sharing his excitement about the tiny creatures, and gently returning them into the garden afterwards. How exciting when he turned up on his last day at our preschool with a weta hotel, made by him and his dad. He recently visited the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary with his parents, a great place to take your child. He saw the weta there and that is what he wanted for his preschool. We have placed the hotel near some bushes, as weta are nocturnal. They will hide during the day and come out at night to eat. We are waiting with anticipation for some warmer weather and hoping that they will soon find this luxury 5 star hotel. For now, the slaters are making themselves at home.

Our beautiful garden, a magical place

Today I received a phone call from a fellow early childhood teacher. She works at an early childhood centre in town and this centre is looking at changing their outdoor environment. She would like to observe our outdoor programme. I receive phone calls like this on a regular base. Our preschool is small with only one classroom, but big things do happen here.

At our preschool, the outdoor environment is not just a playground. We have a strong enviro-nature programme with a beautiful naturalised outdoor environment. Situated in suburban Wellington (NZ) with limited space, we put a lot of emphasize on our outdoor environment as for many of our children this is their outdoor world. For some children this may well be the first place where they have the opportunity to develop a relationship with the natural world, a place where they create their memories and their early childhood.

What is so special about our outdoor environment? Rather then a standard play environment made of rubber, steel, plastic and concrete we have used natural elements from our local beach and forest to create a magical space that incorporates gardening, animal care, nature discovery and physical activities. It is a child’s space, rather than an adult space, where the children can join in hands-on interaction and discovery and where their natural curiosity is met with sensory experiences. We have gathered driftwood from the local beach to use as balancing, climbing and sitting areas. Rocks and boulders from the local river bank are used as stepping stones, sitting or hideaways for insects and worms. We have planted local natives and we have collected leaves and seeds (pinecones, acorns) from the local forest and scattered these in our garden for fossicking. A simple tray with a magnifier glass and small garden spade provides hours of exploration and discovery fun. By using local elements, the children are exposed to their local natural environment. Our magical garden is used as a classroom and brings our children into contact with the natural world. It is a garden where children are given the time to see and feel and hear, to just be.

Book: Last Child in the Woods - Saving our children from nature deficit disorder

Children need nature for their healthy development, - physical, emotional, and spiritual. Exposure to nature develops skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making. Even creativity is stimulated by childhood experiences in nature. Today’s overscheduled children are increasingly “plugged in” to electronic devices and media and unplugged from the fundamental and formative experience of nature in their own neighbourhood. In his book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder, Richard Louv (2005) refers to this nature-child disconnect as “nature deficit disorder”, the effect of withdrawing nature from children’s experiences.

In his book, Louv shares some of his own childhood nature experiences as well as those of some great environmentalists. Louv gathered the thoughts of many parents, teachers, scientists and other parties. What stands out is that many adults of today have had meaningful life shaping experiences in nature when they were a child, while children today are increasingly removed from nature. Louv pleads for a return to an awareness of and appreciation for the natural world. Not only can nature teach kids science and nurture their creativity, he says, nature needs its children: where else will its future stewards come from? Louv directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today’s children to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as rises in obesity, ADD and depression. Last Child in the Woods sparked a movement in the US to reconnect children and nature. The book is a must read for teachers, parents, as well as developers and cityplanners. It will get you thinking.

(New Zealand readers, check out fishpond.co.nz for availability here)