63 Acres and a Toddler

How I want to Raise my Children

I have always loved nature, science, and stories in any form. Some of my favorite childhood memories center around the outdoors. I loved going out into the woods with my dad, flipping over logs to look for salamanders. I'll never forget when a dead tree was removed from my yard, unearthing an enormous ant colony. I sat for well over an hour, watching the ants transporting their larvae to a new location. Every summer, we would raise monarch caterpillars, look for tadpoles, dig for worms, and throw bugs into antlion traps. We would sneak into a gravel pit down the road and search for fossils. 

Upon reflection, it baffles me that I didn't pursue biology in college. I was always scared away by the mathematical component to science, and I figured I couldn't get a degree in that field. Math always intimidated me, and I avoided it at all costs. Hence, I became an English major. 

Regardless, I always learned far more about science from being outside with my dad than I did in classrooms. My love of nature wouldn't have developed if we hadn't been outside, digging around in the mud. So when I think of what I want for my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, this is what comes to mind:

I never want her to be afraid to pursue something she is passionate about. I never want her to think she shouldn't even bother with something because she thinks she wouldn't be good at it. I want her to love learning. I don't want her to listen to the kids in school who tell her that science and math are "boy" subjects. 

I'm not trying to force my kid to live out my dreams. She will decide for herself what she wants to do and learn. I am providing her with a foundation and an open mind. If she wants to learn about something, I will do my best to make sure that she gets the opportunity, whether I'm teaching her myself, or through another avenue. Since she enjoys science as much as I do, I look forward to building memories outside with her, like I did with my dad. 

Now we get to the sixty-three acres. My husband and I decided that we wanted to live in the woods. We each have always wanted to own land and to keep that land as natural as possible. So we purchased 63 acres in northern Michigan to call our own. It is heavily wooded, with a wide variety of flora and fauna, and some low wetland, and backs up to a huge chunk of state nature reserve. We set up trail cams to catch glimpses of the wildlife, and set to making plans to build a house and move up there in a few years. In the meantime, we visit whenever we can and walk the trails, enjoying the peace and green. 

A goal of mine is to become an expert on this little chunk of land. I want to learn everything about it: species population densities, topography, soil studies...the list goes on. For example, so far I have found Blue Spotted salamanders, Red-backed salamanders (both color morphs), Spotted salamanders, and Four-Toed salamanders in different areas throughout the property. I want to study these species, mark on a map exactly where I find them on the land, and see if I can watch how their young grow to adulthood. I want to learn about each species of tree, collect their leaves and press them, and mark their growth. 

Hopefully, I will be able to put together my own field guide to just these 63 acres: every species, with a little blurb for each of them. Guess who can help me put all of this together? My daughter, who always follows me down the trails and wants to do whatever I am doing. 

And boy, have we found some exciting animals! A mother black bear has a den with two little babies. A bobcat family (mom with three kittens) walked past one of the trail cams. We've seen coyote, beaver, porcupine, and deer. These species, I will have to keep track of through pictures. But we do know of some people who keep track of bear populations, and go into the dens during the winter (you won't catch me trying that!). We've had professional rangers come and walk the property and tell us what they see. We want to learn how to be stewards of the land, and then we want to teach these skills to our children. 

To fill in the days when we can't be up at our property, I've come up with a fun way to pass the time with my daughter. I pick a topic every day (or she does), and we focus on learning about it. We use lots of books (something we are never short of at our house), crafts, videos and activities. We also do "field trips," and have a membership to the public museum. I keep a list of topics I think would be fun to cover, but really there are so many that it would be ridiculous to write them all down. Here are some of the first that come to mind:

• Flight
• Engineering
• Bats
• Frogs
• Water cycle
• Cold-blooded vs. warm-blooded
• Animal habitats
• Dinosaurs
• Solar system (Evie loves space, and can name all of the planets)
• Float or sink?
• Digestive system
• Animal tracks
• Constellations
• Plant life cycle
• Egg to chicken
• Engines
• How ice cream is made
• Extinct species
• Rocks and minerals
• The oldest living things
• Fossils
• Deep ocean life
• Jane Goodall 
• Food around the world
• Caldecott winning books

We also read at least five books a day (and sometimes thirty or more!). Not every book or thing we do throughout the day pertains to the theme, but it is fun to see how much you can dig up about each topic. There are also certainly days when I get lazy and we just turn on Magic School Bus and call it good. But overall, I like to remember my long-term goals every day that I wake up to teach my kids. 

I will also be working on educating myself. I will study and learn right alongside my children. 

With this blog, I hope to keep track of this whole process: the process of raising confident young scientists.