Spirit in Nature

             
It is winter break for a couple of days at the Living Wisdom School, so I am branching out and taking a few extra days in February, March, and April to share my love of nature and spirit with children.

 We started out this morning with three students in a small group setting. I begin each session using the Flow Learning™  techniques from the 

Sharing with Nature Foundation 

                          and the Education for Life principals. 

These techniques give a teacher or parent a structured simple way to guide children into a direct experience in nature that is uniquely their own. I highly recommend this for teachers when exploring nature with children of all ages. These activities along with books are all easily accessible on the
Sharing with Nature Foundation Website. 

The first stage of the sequential flow learning is:
Awakening Enthusiasm  

We began with a circle, mindful dance, and two songs. We awoke our energy with the Superconsciousness Living Exercises and then centered our energy with a few yoga postures. The yoga postures used today were reflective of the environment in the park.

Warrior
"I joyfully manifest the power of spirit"

                                         

Positioning ourselves in our warrior asanas


We played another game that introduced our surrounding habitats and the wildlife animals that live there.
In this game I had prepared cards with photos. Each child took a card and acted out their animal and gave clues to everyone else.
We all had fun guessing the animals.

              After we finished the game the expedition began. We were looking for river otters, raccoon's baby salmon called; fry, and baby seals on the beach. Excitement filled the air as we began our journey in search for animals.

We began by using our compass. Our car was parked in the southwest corner of the park. We headed north to the crest of the river.

The second stage of the sequential flow learning is:

Focused attention. 

               We walked the trail and took a little break(above) to play the "Sound Map Game".  Each child sat perfectly still closing their eyes and began to count all the sounds that they could hear close by.
I was surprised to hear the "made up sounds" that they were coming up with. What fun that was.

We ventured up a very steep hill to find out that we were on the wrong side of the creek to view the baby salmon. So with great enthusiasm we headed back the way we came.  With a short detour we came upon the salmon imprinting pond.

The third stage of the sequential flow learning is called:

Direct Experience. 

I read the information and picture information for the children on park signs that is stated below:

 About 70,000 chum fingerlings are first introduced into the Les Malmgren imprinting pond at Carkeek Park each winter, and 5,000 additional eggs are provided to approximately 25 elementary schools that raise and release their salmon into the imprint pond at Carkeek Park each spring as an activity of the Salmon in the Schools Program. The young chum are held in the pond under the care of diligent volunteers and fed for about three weeks to imprint them to the “smell” of the creek system, which helps them return as adults to spawn.

This is a picture of the pond we were able to see today. They were able to directly see the baby salmon and experience the long swim that it would take the salmon to head down the creek.

The rest of the morning we were following the river to the Puget Sound and the trail that the baby salmon have to swim in order to survive in the wild. We passed over many foot bridges and paths together. 

This is almost to the Puget Sound along the rivers edge. The children kept talking about how far the little fish had to swim and how hard it must be. There were many predators along the creek edge just waiting for a mid-morning snack.

 All along each path and on the beach the children gathered small pieces of bark, lichens, mosses, seaweed, pine-cones, shells, and beach glass off the ground. 

I wanted to do a nature craft with the children and this would help to complete the last segment of the flow learning sequence.

The fourth stage of the sequential flow learning is called:

Shared Inspiration 

This is the stage where children begin to absorb the inner state of beauty and awareness. They often will say to me:"Oh, I just love it here. Please let's stay longer. Can I come back tomorrow? 

Above in the photos are the nature collages we created by using all the items we collected from our morning walk through the trails and on the beach. These were glued carefully and artistically placed on each piece of bark. They were very mindful in placing them in just a certain order. 

We ended the day sharing in a circle what our favorite activities had been and what we experienced. Together with parents we chanted three aums blessing Carkeek Park and all the animals. 

It was a beautiful winter outing as our souls joyfully connected with spirit and nature. 

Until tomorrow with our next nature group goes to Carkeek Park in Seattle, Washington.