All posts tagged: outdoors

The Teacher is Talking: The Longest Day

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By Leslie Lindsay If you have been awaiting the first day of summer as my children have, then you’re in luck: the longest day of the year is tomorrow, Wednesday June 20th at 7:09pm EST.  The idea of “when summer begins” has been a question at my house for awhile now.  And the answer isn’t as clear as you’d think. One daughter thought it was summer back in March when the temperatures in suburban Chicago reached an all-time high of near 85 degrees.  No doubt it felt like summer, but it wasn’t.  Oh, no…just early spring.  Another daughter–precocious that she is–told me that Memorial Day is the “kick-off” to summer.  And she would be pretty darn close to right.  Does summer begin when we flip the calendar to June?  Well, yes and no…at least we can don our white clothing. Still yet, I was holding out to call it “summer” when school was officially out for the year–early June, neverminding the fact that preschool ended a full two weeks before elementary school.  See the confusion?  …

The Teacher is Talking: The Longest Day

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By Leslie Lindsay (image retrieved 6.5.12 from Amazon.com) I came across this book, The Longest Day: Celebrating the Summer Solstice by Wendy Pfeffer, illustrated by Linda Bleck.  I presented it to my daughters about two years ago as the longest day of the year rolled around.  At the time, they were probably a bit too young to really understand and appreciate the book, but today–at 5 and 7 years old–they curled up next to me as I read from the colorful pages. And now that most kids are out of school for the summer, it may just be a good time to introduce the reason why we have summer in the first place.  And that is just what the “teacher” will be talking about here on Practical Parenting…with a Twist for the next couple of weeks. The official first day of summer this year is Wednesday, June 20th.  That is, the northern half of the earth tilts toward the sun and so it gets more sunshine than the southern half (that’s why it’s summer in …

Terrificial Trees: Tree Sitting Woman

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By Leslie Lindsay This is the last day of “Terrifical Trees,” a series devoted to Earth Day/Arbor Day and the magnificent tree.  (We’ll be moving into the Mother’s Day series next Friday and continue through the month of May). Flipping through a semi-recent issue of The Sun, I came across a story I just had to share:  it was about a woman who felt so strongly about the redwood forests that she volunteerily climbed into a tree and lived there for two years!!  Seems the lumber industry wanted to chop the tree down.  If someone was living in the tree–and refusing to come out–it was nearly impossible to cut the thing down.  A little bold, huh? Well, according to Julia ‘Butterfly’ Hill the 30-something vegan who sat in the tree–affectionately referred to as ‘Luna’–for 738 days (yes, I remembered that number because it was a childhood street address), it was all out of love.  She didn’t intend to sit in the tree for that long, however.  She recalls that it was intended to be a two-week tree sit.  …

Terrifical Trees: Celebritrees–Historic & Famous Trees of the World

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By Leslie Lindsay Call us tree huggers, but my family loves trees.  We love to sit in their shade and read a book (me), climb them (my 7-year old), talk about raising them–as in a tree farm (hubby), and collect things from them such as leaves and pine cones (my 5-year old). Last year–about this time–I purchased this book Celebritrees:  Historic & Famous Trees of the World (Marji Preus and Rebecca Gibbon, Henry Holt & Company, 2010) as  little family gift to celebrate Arbor Day.  I pasted some photos of us surveying tree farms as well as my daughters’ drawings of pine trees and sunshine.  It serves as a sweet momento of our love of trees. But the book also has some really great tid-bits about trees; things I never knew.  We’ve been reading a blurb or two to our daughters over the course of the year and I thought I’d share some with you and your family–seeing how Earth Day is Sunday, April 22nd and Arbor Day (at least here in Illinois) is April 27th. (image retrieved from Amazon …

Terrifical Trees: Arbor Day History & Celebration

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By Leslie Lindsay April.  The month of rain; the month of newness and growth.  So, why not celebrate the almighty tree?  We do just that with the annual tradition of Arbor Day and Earth Day.  Interestingly, though Arbor Day is celebrated at different times of the year for each state.  For example, here in Illinois we celebrate Arbor Day the last Friday of the month, but Missouri celebrates it the first Friday of April.  Floridians are honoring trees the third Friday of January and some states not until May, depending on the climate and best times of year to plant trees. Originating in Nebraska City, Nebraska by J. Sterling Morton on April 10, 1872 where an estimated 1 million trees were planted on that particular day.  Since then, Americans have marked the day a way to plant and care for trees. But just who was this J. Stirling Morton guy?! Seems he was was a college-educated Nebraska newpaper editor (by way of Michiagn) who served as President Grover Cleaveland’s secretary of Agriculture.   In 1897, he started a weekly conservative …