Parents and Educators Love Super Natural Adventures!

We are receiving some great feedback on the site and on the overall concept of SNA.

Here are some of the comments:

"I found SNA phenomenal!!! What a wonderful idea and a great teaching tool. I couldn’t keep quiet about it to my friends (moms)...I am sooo impressed... The videos are educational, fun, well-done, so professional--just amazing. Your kids do a fantastic job on them. They make it so upbeat and exciting."

--Veronique, mom of two, San Jose

"My kids really enjoyed watching the videos. They can't wait to get outside now and have their own Super Natural Adventure! Thanks for inspiring them!"

--Tom, father of three, New York

"You are fantastic parents who have learned how to give your children an opportunity of a lifetime -- a REAL EDUCATION!!!!!"

--Mrs. Nash, elementary school educator, instructor for teachers, Milwaukee

Thanks for all the support, educators and fellow parents!

Let's continue to get kids excited about nature and the environment!

Ideas for Outdoor Family Fun

Well, the "Outdoor Movement" is certainly catching on!

Just about every weekend now is a designated time by some organization or other for families to get outside.

That's great news for parents, because with all these designated days comes a website and suggested family outdoor activities!

This coming weekend, October 11-13, it's the National Wildlife Federation's Green Hour campaign that is promoting Make Tracks: Family Trail Weekend.

Be sure to bring along a camera and snap some picks or shoot soome video that your kids can submit to our website.

It's "Take a Child Outside Week!"

We're in the midst of "Take a Child Outside Week," an initiative started last year by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

It's fast becoming a national event, with a few hundred organizations around the United States signed on to participate this year.

What can you do to participate? Check out www.takeachildoutside.org and get some great tips for outdoor activities.

And while you're out there...don't forget to take some photos or video and submit it to Super Natural Adventures!

Today Show Focuses on the Importance of Kids Connecting to Nature

It's not just SNA suggesting that kids get outside! There's a world-wide movement taking place!

The Today Show recently did a peice on Nature Deficit Disorder and getting kids outside. I hope you too are getting more and more inspired each day to send your kids outside to have their own Super Natural Adventures! Encourage them to share their experiences on our site.

Take Back Your Family!

As the school year begins and the flurry of activity that accompanies it kicks in as well, I'm reminded of the origins of our move to Costa Rica.

Four years ago living in suburban USA I saw from observing my neighbors with older kids what was coming down the pike for me: week nights crammed with homework and infernal driving to practices, weekends dictated and decimated by game schedules.

That was enough to motivate me three years ago to grab my family and flee the country. But I'm known for Bold Moves, both literally and figuratively.

Others are taking back their family with equal success without going to such extremes.One family we know moved from the city life to the mountains of Colorado to experience a different pace of life. Another we know takes a month in summer and disappears into the beauty of Hawaii, while another spends long weekends deep in the pristine nature of Montana. I'm struck that for each of these families (including ours), getting into nature is an important component to reclaiming their family life.There's a movement out there in many parts of the US called, "Leave No Child Inside." There are other similar "kids and families back-to-nature" chapters and organizations springing up. If you feel you'd like to start reconnecting with your family AND the natural world, I encourage you to check out one of these organizations (start by clicking on "Links of Interest" on the Super Natural Adventures website).

OR, Send me an e-mail at junglemama@snamail.com and tell me what measures you're taking to reclaim your family time and/or reconnect with nature. I'd like to start sharing inspirational stories with our SNA site visitors.

Learn to Play Again!

I remember when my boys were little how they wanted me to to play Hot Wheels with them all the time. I thought I was going to keel over from boredom as I pushed my cars around (shhh, please don't tell them that!). Problem was, I had forgotten how to play. Just play. My kids can STILL spend hours making up scenarios for those cars. What a gift it is to have an imagination!

Part of the criticism that's coming out now in studies in regards to the mercurial rise of organized everything (sports, games, school work) in our culture is that it's beating the imagination out of our kids, not to mention CREATING stress within them. (Perhaps because they're set up by adults who long ago lost their own imaginations...but I digress...)

The American Academy of Pediatrics published a report last year stating that unstructured play is essential for healthy development. Here's the article! Take a look at it and use that as fodder to explain to your spouse/in-laws/neighbors why you're pulling back the reigns on some of the organized stuff.

Going Green with School Supplies

Going Green with School Supplies

It's that time again--purchasing back-to-school supplies! I recently found greener pastures to graze for such items: The Green Office is an online source that provides kits of basic school supplies made from recycled or non-toxic materials so they are gentler to the environment. What a great way for you and your child to share and show your environmental colors!

School-Age Kids Free to Play Unsupervised?

An article a few months ago in the Los Angeles Times talks about how a woman named Lenore Skenazy of New York City gave her son the freedom to "play" freely and how she set off a maelstrom of criticism for it.

For the LATimes editorial Click here

For the original article by Lenore that set off the firestorm Click here

Heaven knows how I'd be persecuted if people in the States really knew the freedoms we've given our kids since moving here! After our first year in Costa Rica we came back to Milwaukee for the summer and rented an apartment downtown. It was a ball for all of us to be in such an urban environment after so much jungle! But we brought with us our newly-cultivated freedoms.

One day the kids were bored (no jungle to roam!). So, similar to the woman profiled in the article above, Steve and I gave them (ages 8, 9 and 11 at the time) one of our cell phones, $20 and the suggestion of exploring the lakefront park down the street and perhaps visiting the nearby children's museum (which Steve and I were active in helping to found when we lived in Milwaukee and with which our kids were very familiar).

We received our first check-in phone call at the appointed time. "Hi Mom and Dad. We're at the Art Museum." "Really? Why not the children's museum?" "They wouldn't let us in without adults." "But the ART Museum does??" "Yes. We're checking out the exhibit on comics."

Later, we received an update call letting us know that they'd enjoyed the exhibit and were now having lunch on the museum's terrace (they had to split a sandwich because the $20 didn't get them very far!). They bummed around the park area, then came home at the agreed upon time.

Clearly, I'm in the camp of Skenazy, whose website states, "We believe in safe kids. ... We do NOT believe that every time school-age children go outside, they need a security detail." (Check out Skenazy's website, FreeRange Kids which is all about giving kids the freedom to be.)

The author of the LA Times article cites statistics to back up Skenazy: "We parents have sold ourselves a bill of goods when it comes to child safety. Forget the television fear-mongering: Your child stands about the same chance of being struck by lightning as of being the victim of what the Department of Justice calls a 'stereotypical kidnapping.' And unless you live in Baghdad, your child stands a much, much greater chance of being killed in a car accident than of being seriously harmed while wandering unsupervised around your neighborhood."

When someone we know (all info expunged to protect her...and us, from her!) with children of similar ages heard the story of our kids' afternoon excursion, she was dumb-founded and gave us a piece of her mind about how ridiculously irresponsible we were as parents. We actually had felt very pleased with ourselves, seeing that experience as an indicator of how we were raising such independent and responsible kids.

What do you think?

It's time for the Green Hour!

The US-based National Wildlife Federation recently launched The Green Hour, which is all about connecting kids back with nature (obviously, something we here at Super Natural Adventures applaud and laud and encourage!)

Their website includes a Parent's Guide, which can give you some ideas on how to make the foray into green free play with your kids.

Have fun! And drop me a comment on how it goes!