WELL-BEING OUTDOORS

Experience Natural Wellness for Children and Adults

“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.”

Gary Snyder

Nature is an essential place for our lives.
It brings us adults and children many benefits,
that affect our physical and mental health.

Let us invite you to the "green pharmacy".

Green Pharmacy Challenges

Getting immersed in nature.

time with STONES

Embrace the calm and stability of the stones

experience the MICROWORLDS

Lose yourself in small worlds, they open the imagination

experience SILENCE

Let the power of nature calm and soothe you

Water Challenges 🙂

enjoy WATER

Let the energy of water touch you

on the WAVES

Test your skills on the water

WINTER gallery

Marvelling is also something to practice

Challenges for the Feet 🙂

BAREFOOT in nature

Explore and feel the ground with your feet

a FOOT as a paintbrush

Try painting with your feet

BAREFOOT in the SNOW

Do your feet want a real challenge?

calls from the woods 🙂

INFOGRAPHICS

How nature affects us in a nutshell.

UPCOMING WEBINAR

Get inspired

FREE WEBINAR 
WELL-BEING OUTDOORS FOR KIDS

May 14, 2024 (8 p.m. CEST)

Find ways to enhance children's well-being through nature and make learning more effective. Get inspired. Try games and challenges in nature to help children de-stress, relax and recharge.

We look forward to the webinar on May 14!
Anna and Justina from Lessons in Grass

We will send the webinar recording to all registered participants.

FREE WEBINAR 
SCIENCE OUTDOORS

May 14, 2024 (8:30 p.m. CEST)

Celebrate School Grounds Month by exploring science outdoors because the biggest interactive lab starts at your doorstep. Just open the door and step out. There are endless learning opportunities awaiting us, it's just a matter of looking the right way.

We look forward to the webinar on May 14!
Anna and Justina from Lessons in Grass

We will send the webinar recording to all registered participants.

DESCRIPTION OF CHALLENGES

TIME WITH STONES

What's the magic?

How will this activity contribute to my well-being and the well-being of my children?

Small objects naturally attract our attention and regenerate our minds. If we want to observe them, we must slow down our rather busy days.

Moreover, we develop tactile sensitivity, the pebbles in our fingers are somehow soothing, and grounding, we feel the pleasant weight and lightness of pebbles or stones.

With the natural objects in our hands and our attention focused on them, we generally calm our organism or, on the contrary, we draw energy through play and discovering something interesting.

Children relax by playing with stones. Similarly, for us adults, directing our focus towards stones offers a respite from the constant stream of thoughts, tasks, and challenges of everyday life.

You need: nothing is needed; only a place full of stones.

Stones fascinate us, children and adults alike. Sometimes we just walk on them, rushing, but all we have to do is slow down, pause and look under our feet. And then you start to see the treasures. Each one is different. Let the calm and stability of the stones slow your days down. Find a suitable place or stony path and immerse yourself and the children in stone games.

TIP: It's even more powerful when you connect stones and water. For example, if you stop at a stream, river, puddle, or bring a bowl of water to a pile of stones, then miracles happen.

Ideas on how to do this. Find boulders, stones, pebbles; you can look for and choose from them:

- the prettiest,
- the smoothest,
- the roundest,
- look for opposites,
- stack them up and build walls or shapes out of them,
- move them around,
- throw them,
- balance them on your foot, on your head, on your nose, etc..,
- stroke them,
- use them for a massage,
- carve something with them,
- tap them against each other,
- explore what they remind you of,
- tell stories about them,
- hide them like treasure,
- awaken the characters in them and invite them to play,
- build a stone den for goblins,
- hide them in a box to make a rattling musical instrument,
- make them into a tool for creating in nature,
and many other fun games.

TIP: make a little stone pit in your area, in addition to a sandpit. A place where you collect found pebbles (e.g. a box, bucket, pile under a tree). Make a village of little trolls, draw little eyes and noses on the stones in your stone pit and hide them so you can't tell they are trolls, then turn them around and let them all smile at the world.

TIP: For children who have been sitting inside for a long time, it's important to give them plenty of running and romping around before experiencing the nature activities.


EXPERIENCE THE MICROWORLDS

What's the magic?

How will this activity contribute to my well-being and the well-being of my children?

Small worlds allow us to immerse ourselves in a new reality and forget our own for a while.

They give space for creativity and play with natural materials that regenerate our attention and improve our mood. That's why children enjoy building gnome houses so much 🙂

You need: nothing is needed, just natural materials, if the children want they can add strings and other items

A landscape doesn't have to span vast distances between horizons; it can be as small as a square meter, a tree stump, or a pot.

This is the landscape of children who can't reach over the horizon (yet). Children are happy to create beautiful houses, farms and battlefields in a small place. Find a suitable place and try to build your little worlds. If necessary, show the children how to do it. Then everyone can unleash their imagination and create independently or together in a group. You can also add characters from natural materials as inhabitants of the small worlds.

TIP: If someone is tired of building houses in small worlds, give them a different challenge. Have them build a model of the playground they would like to have for themselves and their friends.

To finish, it's a good idea to walk through all the buildings and imagine the stories that could take place there. Who lives here? What does he or she like here? Where does he rest? Where does he get his goodies?

TIP: Place your little elves (characters made from natural materials) in your microworld. Then show your landscape to your parents or friends, will they find all the elves you have hidden??


EXPERIENCE SILENCE

What's the magic?

How will this activity contribute to my well-being and the well-being of my children?

You develop a focus on a different sense than sight.

You expand your perception of your surroundings and focus only on the sounds around you.

You can relax your direct attention and your capacity.

It's a surprisingly effective short activity that can calm the mind and immune system (if you listen to the pleasant sounds of nature).

The most popular sounds are the water sounds, the sound of waves (not only sea waves), the sound of birds and the sound of branches in gentle breeze.

You need: nothing is needed just a willingness to listen

The wind is a messenger that carries many messages to us or from us - sounds drift on the waves of the wind. Have you ever noticed how many sounds are around us? And how do they affect us?

Walk away from the road, path and village until you hear no "human" sound, listen to your own breathing, stand still and watch nature return to its natural sounds. Which natural sounds will you hear first?

Find a comfortable spot and try to just listen for a while with your eyes closed. If this is still challenging for the children, just hold on for a moment (perhaps half a minute) and gradually extend the time on subsequent visits.

 

TIP: SOUND MAP

You need: paper, pencil, crayons

If you want, you can draw a sound map. Draw a circle on paper to represent the space around you. Then listen to the sounds and gradually draw or write down what you hear where. Play the same game outside in nature, in an urban area, by the road or inside a room. How are they different? Where do you feel the most comfortable?


ENJOY WATER

What's the magic?

How will this activity contribute to my well-being and the well-being of my children?

Water is an element that naturally attracts and relaxes our attention.

Its fluidity, calm and depth naturally comfort us. We can let go of all our worries. To discover its natural flow, the fact that it is always changing, and to accept this givenness as a fact.

Moreover, the sound of water has a calming effect in itself.

For children, furthermore, the energy of water as an element is a quick invitation to free play, which also has great therapeutic effects.

You need: you don't need anything special, just the desire to explore

Where is water all around us? And what sounds does it make? Take a moment to talk with the children and guess where water is hidden and what its sounds are.

1. Listen if you can hear water somewhere under the roof. In the apartment, house, school, kindergarten.

2. Go for a walk and listen to the water outside among the houses and in nature, in the park, in the garden, in the woods or by the stream.

3. At a stream, near puddles, or ponds, you can try to step into shallow water and listen to it really closely. What sounds does it make? With your eyes closed, try sitting on the bank of running water or just the splashing edge of a pond, listen to the rain and the wind in the canopy. Listen until all you can focus on is the water. Imagine you are sitting on the edge of Niagara or the seashore.

Compare the sound of a spring, a stream and a river. Listen to the sound of reeds, frogs and birds around the water.

(4.) For the brave. Listen to the water underwater, dive into a pond or stream, close your eyes, plug your nose and let yourself be carried away by the silence of the pond or the gurgling of a wild river.

TIP: You can stick up a large piece of paper and draw or write down your observations and listening to the water not just for a day, but for a week or a month, maybe even a year.


ON THE WAVES

What's the magic?

How will this activity contribute to my well-being and the well-being of my children?

Creating gives us the space to open up to the new and immerse ourselves in invention that is not limited by rules.

Our attention can drift freely and thus not get tired. In addition, the joy of working together or creating a work of art is guaranteed to lift our spirits.

TIP: Some children find free creation a tempting challenge, while others prefer to hold on to support. They may prefer someone who tells them what to do and how to do it. It's a good idea to show one version of a boat or raft and then give children the freedom to invent their own model or to try the proven route instead. Everything is fine. 

You need: you don't need anything special, a few strings and a knife may come in handy (not necessary)

You can have fun by the creek even in colder weather. Try making simple boats out of leaves, bark or grass and organize races or a joint expedition.

Instead of boats, you can send wreaths or small bouquets of flowers downstream. And finally, don't forget to build a few dams on the stream and watch how a new still or small pool is created and how the water jumps over the dam on the stones. Where this might be a problem, you might want to unfold your building again at the end.

IMPORTANT: Similar games are a great opportunity to develop children's sensitivity. Encourage them to keep an eye on whether the rocks from the creek are home to other organisms that can be harmed by our buildings.

Make little elves out of whatever you have around and let them sail on your boats. See how many elves the boat can carry and how many will make it to their destination. Don't worry if they fall overboard, water elves love the water, they'd jump in and swim off into the distance anyway.

TIP: If the kids are interested, pack out a few of their favourite characters and let them sail the water.


WINTER GALLERY

What's the magic?

How will this activity contribute to my well-being and the well-being of my children?

Focus your attention on a detail that only nature can conjure.

You can immerse yourself in a natural exploration that can culminate in a fascination with the magic that nature has to offer.

You develop your mindfulness and at the same time turn off excess thoughts.

You need: you don't need anything special, a magnifying glass, paper frames, a camera or drawing papers can be useful

Even colder weather has great power. Just go outside and look around. Take a little unconventional approach today. You're entering a unique gallery. There's an exhibition waiting for you, subject to the availability of the current offer.

Icy, snowy, muddy, windy or rainy. There are so many possibilities and each one of them is unique. As you stroll through the exhibit, go slowly and look for paintings, sculptures, unique nooks and crannies you haven't seen before.

At an appropriate place, you can split up and everybody look for their special piece of art or place. Then show them to each other.

TIP: You can make notes, draw, take pictures or shoot your unique paintings and sculptures. You might even create a "catalog" for the outdoor gallery that can work as an invitation for your community.

 

TIP: PRACTICE AMAZEMENT ONE STEP AT A TIME

Some children and adults find it challenging to embrace the beauty of nature, to see the uniqueness, the extraordinary in seemingly ordinary leaves, trees, flowers, shapes.

Therefore, we recommend gradual steps here as well, allowing time for the skill of MARVELLING to strengthen and develop on its own. 

BAREFOOT IN NATURE

You need: nothing is needed, just a varied safe surface

Walking barefoot is pleasant and healthy. But if you're a barefoot beginner, here are some ideas on how to do it.

Start on soft and comfortable surfaces such as grass, moss or damp sand. Gradually add surfaces that are a little more difficult, such as pine needles or leaf litter in a deciduous forest. However, hot sand won't do your feet much good.

If you want something really pleasant, take a walk through a dewy meadow or cool mud.

And if you're already experienced, hit the gravel paths and dirt rocky roads. The longer you walk barefoot, the more your foot gets used to it until eventually, you stop noticing the tiny stones altogether.

Eventually, you might just wear your shoes into town over the summer, where walking barefoot is not entirely safe.

What's the magic?

How will this activity contribute to my well-being and the well-being of my children?

1. Barefoot walking is healthy for our feet, legs, ankles, knees, pelvis, back, cervical spine...

2. Barefoot walking increases the sensitivity of our feet and deepens our overall perception.

3. Barefoot we naturally slow down. When we slow down in nature, we often deepen our breathing, feel calm and this has an effect on our immune system. We are more at ease physically and mentally.

4. We can explore the same places, with different eyes and different sensory perceptions.