Fern Michonski / Fern’s Music
Pre-School Music Education Expert: The Children’s Advocate for Love and Kindness, Inspiring Creativity and Joy.
April 18, 2012—Wild Animals, Nature and Children
In my February 15, 2012 blog, I wrote about pets and kids, putting forth the opinion that I feel the two go hand-in-glove, and encouraging people to bring a pet into their home. I was recently reading some information from the National Wildlife Federation regarding wild animals and children, and I couldn’t agree more. The NWF stated “When children start learning about animals, nature and the environment at an early age, they better understand what an extraordinary world we live in.”
I have always been one who loves nature, the outdoors and all the creatures who inhabit this earth with us. From the very beginning of my children’s lives I would take them outside for walks to see, hear, touch and feel the beauty of nature. I always encouraged my kids to write stories about their walks or draw pictures about what they had seen. Then we would share the stories and hang the pictures they had drawn on the refrigerator. This process instilled in them a love for the great outdoors. I vividly remember the day my young son came home from school and announced how upset he had been that day because one of his classmates had stomped on an ant that was walking across the classroom floor. He could not understand why the other child was happy about squishing the ant. He felt the ant should have been picked up and placed outside. I was very proud of him. All of our walks and talks had given him a deep love of nature and its creatures, which is still part of him to this day. I would encourage everyone to visit the National Wildlife Federation’s website at: http://www.nwf.org/wildanimalbaby Here you will learn more about their award-winning baby animals magazine and the wild animal baby EXPLORERS television show. We all need to encourage our children to respect and preserve the creatures we share our planet with.
A Native American Proverb states: “We don’t inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” How true. Let’s teach them to cherish it.