This is a guest post from IHE M.Ed. student, parent, humane educator, drama teacher, and blogger, Kerri Twigg. (You can read our recent interview with her here.)I did a fun activity while I was at The Summer Institute a few weeks ago, called Find your Tree.
Yesterday, I tried doing it with Julia along the river path five minutes from our home. We didn’t bring a blindfold, but we are both good at not peeking. I slowly walked with her as I led her to a tree that split into two. It had just rained and she enjoyed the wet grass on her ankles and the wet bark beneath her fingers. She was great at really feeling the tree with her eyes closed. We walked back to the path and she opened her eyes. She looked around and confidently went to her tree, pointed and said, “this one.” She was right.
She was great at leading me, making sure to go extra slow because I had Macy in the baby carrier. She led me to a tree that had a new sprout and a smooth lower bark. I was able to find my tree on the first try too. She asked me what other kind of activities I did at my school and I described some. Today, we are doing smell teas.
Later in the day at the wading pool, Julia made some new friends and the topic turned to our morning tree activity. The other girls said, “that sounds super fun” and then Julia told them about the smell teas planned for today. The girls want to come. We gave them our phone number and today I am taking five little girls and a baby to the lovely tree lined river path to make scent teas. Pretty dreamy. Perhaps, this is the start of an unofficial summer humane education program in our community. Also, pretty dreamy.
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