Posted in Boys Activities, hiking with toddlers, learning through play, local outdoors outings, Short Hikes, Unstructured Play, tagged Hiking with toddlers, Memorial Park, Memorial Park San Mateo, natural forts, outdoors play with toddlers, tree forts on February 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »
We found this one in Memorial Park. The boys played here for the longest time. I’m finding many of our most successful hikes are those on which we stop and make time for unstructured play if that’s what the boys want to do.
Clambering around their forest stronghold
It's all mine!
Posted in local outdoors outings, Short Hikes, tagged Hawaiian Chieftan, Hikes with toddlers, Port of Redwood City, preschooler activities in Redwood City, preschooler outings in the bay area, the Lady Washington on February 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Today we checked out the two replica eighteenth-century tall ships, the Lady Washington and the Hawaiian Chieftain, that are currently moored in the Port of Redwood City. It was a pretty impressive sight which the kids enjoyed more than I’d expected. I was also surprised by how fun the port was for little ones to explore. There’s a trail along the water front from where kids can look into the water, watch the ducks and geese, and enjoy the many sail boats out in the Bay. The Monkey had many questions about how sail boats worked and why all the boats looked so different. It was a new experience for him. The Puppy Dog really enjoyed chasing the ducks. We’ll no doubt come again on a windy day and bring a picnic lunch. As long as you’re happy to have your little ones near water, the port makes for an interesting outing.
Boat watching
Big ship, little guy
Posted in Boys Activities, local outdoors outings, Short Hikes, tagged Bravo Ranch, Soquel, Stroller Hikes on February 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »
I can’t quite believe how wonderfully warm and sunny it was today. I think we set a record for February, managing to enjoy a full day (8am-5.30pm, minus a nap in the car) outside. We spent much of the day on the Stroller Hike’s expedition to Bravo Ranch playing in the fields, woods and the creek. It’s a magnificent and remote spot, perfect for toddlers to explore with a play area, animals, tractor rides, water and mud. If you fancy joining the next Stroller Hike’s trip to the ranch–their annual camping trip in July–see here to make reservations.
Rustic beauty everywhere
All sorts of things to explore on the ranch
Did someone say mud this way?
Spot the baby in the wilderness
Posted in hiking with toddlers, learning through play, Short Hikes, tagged developing the senses, hikes with preschoolers, Hikes with toddlers, hiking with preschoolers, playing in the woods, teaching about smell, teaching preschoolers about smell, teaching preschoolers about the senses, the Redwood Grove on February 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »
I love how quickly preschoolers learn, and how they are able to draw on their own past experiences to discover new things for themselves. And the natural world is a great place to see this process in action.
On a hike last week we gave The Monkey a bay leaf to smell. Since then he’s started thinking more about what he can smell when we’re outside and today he discovered a lavender bush all by himself. He was so excited to be able to show me something he’d found and so proud of his growing ability to explore his world.
Smelly
Posted in Animal Spotting, hiking with toddlers, Short Hikes, Wilderness Activities, tagged Hiking with toddlers, Stevens Creek Nature Trail, wet hikes on February 21, 2012| 1 Comment »
The boys really enjoyed this hike after the rain. There were plenty of mud and puddles, and the wet really brought the wildlife out.
The exhilaration of a muddy trail
Hard to beat the views
Wet moss. It's even better than dry moss.
A little friend among the leaves
Posted in Animal Spotting, Short Hikes, Unstructured Play, tagged Hidden Villa, Hiking with toddlers, lamb season on February 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Hidden Villa is one of our favorite local spots and this week we paid it a spring visit. Hidden Villa is an organic farm and wilderness preserve founded by the Duvenecks in 1924 and dedicated to the cause of environmental education. It’s a wonderful spot for toddlers. There’s an awesome, enclosed Education Garden with rows of different plants and lots of natural playhouses, tunnels and hidden animals for kids to “discover”. My boys will play happily there for well over an hour, running in and out of the tunnels and playing ‘house.’
Making lunch in the playhouse
More tunnels
Further down the path there are animals to visit: cows and sheep by the barn, and chickens, goats and pigs beyond that. Both boys love going into the field with the chickens where they can often get close enough to touch the birds.
Chicken Chasing
Lambs
We go to Hidden Villa fairly often as it changes so much throughout the year. Last time we were there over Christmas, four piglets had just been born. This trip we were able to see how much these babies had grown. The boys remembered the piglets and how they had acted last time and were able to make comparisons with their behaviour this visit. Plus, the farm had just welcomed a bunch of lambs, some in the last two weeks, and the boys were delighted to watch these little “baas” (as The Puppy Dog calls them) frolicking in the muddy field. I love having a place like this close by to visit where the kids can see the cycles of nature in action and note the changing seasons. It’s a great value day trip – Hidden Villa just asks for a $5 donation per car.
Posted in hiking with toddlers, Short Hikes, tagged group hikes, Hiking with toddlers on February 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »
So you know those blogs that give the impression things with kids go wonderfully all the time, the ones where gorgeous, happy children play/create/build contentedly with their joy-filled mothers in beautiful homes, well, this blog isn’t one of those. Sure, I want to show how much fun it is to get outside with your kids, but I don’t want to pretend it’salwayseasy or that things don’t sometimes go wrong.
And today was one of those days when things just went wrong. We went for a toddler trek this morning in a large group of kids and adults, and The Puppy Dog cried pretty much the whole way. Not pleasant. And also not that common. He usually enjoys being outside and loves to run along the trials. So I thought a post-mortem was in order. Why did things go so wrong this morning? What can I learn from the experience?
1. Hiking in big groups with kids is hard. The problem is that kids like to meander along the trail examining whatever catches their fancy. In a large group it’s hard to let kids do this however. Trying to get your kids to keep up with the group means they get frustrated that their own needs are not being met. That was definitely part of the problem this morning. The Puppy Dog wanted to spend time playing in the dirt but his older brother wanted to run with the big kids. This resulted in a pace that was too quick and too steady for the Puppy Dog to explore as he wanted.
2. Knowing the trail is key when hiking with kids. I’d never done this trail before and it wasn’t terribly suitable for kids: too narrow and not too much to look at. It was so narrow, in fact, that kids couldn’t stop to look at their surroundings without holding everyone up. Made for a bit of a joyless trudge.
Basically the big group dynamic and the nature of the trail turned the hike into work rather than play. It just didn’t work. Ah well, we live and learn.
Posted in Short Hikes, Wilderness Activities, tagged signs of spring, wild flowers on February 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »
pretty
We’re already noticing signs of spring along the trails here. Anyone know what these are?
Posted in Short Hikes, Uncategorized, tagged hiking with children, Hiking with toddlers, McClellan Ranch, Toddler treks on January 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »
We’ve only recently discovered this little gem in Cupertino, but it’s quickly become a favorite with the boys.
The boys on the trail
There are wonderful fallen trees to climb on and jump off:
A Puppy Dog in a tree
Nothing improves a hike like things to jump off
A numbered nature trail to follow:
Mom, there are numbers in the woods!
and a creek to throw stones in (complete with handy natural barrier to prevent soggy children).
Hmm..now how can I get into the water?
What’s so lovely about this little park is how wild it feels even though it’s small and surrounded by suburbia. And how empty – we’ve never seen other hikers there on any visit. McClellan Ranch is also beautifully maintained and it warms my heart that it’s treasured so much by the locals that there is never any trash to be found. A perfect toddler trek destination on a sunny afternoon.
Posted in Short Hikes, Uncategorized, tagged hiking, hiking with kids, Hiking with toddlers, Los Trancos Open Space Preserve, San Andreas fault, short hikes on November 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »
This weekend we found an awesome, kid friendly and interesting-to-adults trail in Los Trancos Open Preserve: the San Andreas Fault Trail. The trail was wide enough for a jog stroller but The Monkey walked the whole way, and The Puppy Dog most of the way.
The Monkey running down the trail map in hand
Puppy Dog liked it too
There was lots for the kids to look at — interesting trees and flowers, little rabbits and a family of deer. There’s also a guided walk with points of geographical interest. The Monkey loved running ahead and finding the numbered posts that marked each landmark and then finding them on the map. It was really neat to see him understand how maps work and how the things represented there relate to the real world. His parents enjoyed the information on the San Andreas fault–we learnt lots about pressure ridges and sag ponds, and how fault features looked like great building spots to early settlers until they realised what had made them.
An exercise in map reading
It was also a nice trail to use to talk to The Monkey about earthquakes and to help him make sense of the earth quake drills that he’s been having at school in previous weeks. Broken fences and mis-shaped trees made great visuals to help him understand what an earthquake is.
A fence split asunder by a quake
Looking down the fault--deadly but beautiful
The Outdoors Parent 