Audrey Withycombe is a wife, mother of two, and former teacher. Audrey is passionate about seeking adventures from mountain biking to exploring hot springs. She and her family have made it a whole lifestyle as they currently live full time at a summer camp in Minnesota. When Audrey isn’t out adventuring with her family, she is blogging and podcasting about being an outdoorsy family. I was so happy to be able to sit down and talk with Audrey about life at camp, and the joy of being outdoors!

You can find Audrey's blog and podcast at outdoorsyfamilies.com and follow her over on instagram @outdoorsy.families

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Welcome to Happy Outdoor Families, the podcast that encourages and equips families to spend more time exploring and playing together outside. Today I'm excited to talk all about recess advocacy, and Summer Belloni is the perfect person for this conversation! As a credentialed teacher, she has experience teaching in both public and private schools. On the parenting side, when her own children entered school, Summer served on a district level student health advisory council where she began to really understand the importance of recess. She began to advocate locally for district policy, and went on to start Texans for Recess, an organization that advocates for recess policy on the state level. Continuing her passion for school and learning, summer is currently finishing coursework and assessments for her preliminary administrative credential and a master’s degree in education focusing on administrative leadership. Her current research focuses on teacher perception of recess, and Summer also serves on the board of the International Play Association, USA as their recess chair. Most importantly, she is raising two children who love to play outside as much as possible. I am excited for you to hear more of Summer’s story and her wisdom on recess advocacy.

Some resources mentioned in the show and places for further learning:

The LIINK project: https://liinkproject.tcu.edu/

IPA USA: https://ipausa.org/

Texans for Recess group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1879894452038819

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Welcome to Happy Outdoor Families, the podcast that encourages and equips families to spend more time exploring and playing together outside. I am your host, Emily Isenbarger, and I hope that as you listen in each week you will feel inspired and excited about reconnecting your kids, and yourselves, with the outdoors - whatever that looks like for you. Join with me as we dive into the beauty, the benefits, and the challenges of taking life outside. Thanks for listening!

This week we are talking about another "hidden" sense, our proprioceptive sense. Our proprioceptive sense allows us to know where our limbs and other body parts are, and to judge the force and speed of our movements. Listen in to hear more about how this sense is developed and how we can make sure kids aren't missing out on the sensory input that they need to keep it strong. 

In the episode, I reference Angela Hanscom's book, Balanced and Barefoot, which you can find here: 

https://bookshop.org/books/balanced-and-barefoot-how-unrestricted-outdoor-play-makes-for-strong-confident-and-capable-children/9781626253735

Here are a few follow up articles as well:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080450469019070

https://tinkergarten.com/blog/what-is-our-sixth-sense-and-how-does-it-affect-our-kids

https://www.stack.com/a/the-real-reason-schools-are-banning-tag-and-why-it-should-be-a-wake-up-call-for-parents/

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Welcome to Happy Outdoor Families, the podcast that encourages and equips families to spend more time exploring and playing together outside. I am your host, Emily Isenbarger, and I hope that as you listen in each week you will feel inspired and excited about reconnecting your kids, and yourselves, with the outdoors - whatever that looks like for you. Join with me as we dive into the beauty, the benefits, and the challenges of taking life outside. Thanks for listening!

This week we are talking about one of the "hidden sense" that we all possess - our vestibular sense. This is the sense that allows us to sense where our bodies are in space and contributes to our ability to balance and move through our world with ease. Listen in to find out more about why this sense is so vital and what is has to do with getting outside!

Some of the articles and books that I mention in the show are linked below:

1. What is the Vestibular Sense? - https://pathways.org/what-is-the-vestibular-sense/

2. The Shocking Phenomenon That Shows Just How Movement-Starved Modern Kids Really Are - https://www.stack.com/a/the-shocking-phenomenon-that-shows-just-how-movement-starved-modern-kids-really-are/

3. Balanced and Barefoot by Angela Hanscom - https://bookshop.org/books/balanced-and-barefoot-how-unrestricted-outdoor-play-makes-for-strong-confident-and-capable-children/9781626253735

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Welcome to Happy Outdoor Families, the podcast that encourages and equips families to spend more time exploring and playing together outside. I am your host, Emily Isenbarger, and I hope that as you listen in each week you will feel inspired and excited about reconnecting your kids, and yourselves, with the outdoors - whatever that looks like for you. Join with me as we dive into the beauty, the benefits, and the challenges of taking life outside. Thanks for listening!

This week I am sharing some of my FAVORITE fall-themed picture books. Whether your children are young or old, these are beautiful books that are so fun to cuddle up with on a cool fall day. I hope you find a new favorite! All of the books that I talk about in this episode are listed below:

1. Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn - Kenard Pak

2. Hiking Day - Ann Rockwell, illustrated by Lizzy Rockwell

3. Ox-Cart Man - Donald Hall, illustrated by Barbara Cooney

4. Pumpkin Jack - Will Hubbell

5. The Pumpkin Book - Gail Gibbons

6. By the Light of the Harvest Moon - Harriet Ziefert, illustrated by Mark Jones

7. Hello, Harvest Moon - Ralph Fletcher, illustrated by Kate Kesler

8. Scarecrow - Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Lauren Stringer

9. Johnny Appleseed - Poem by Reeve Lindbergh, illustrated by Kathy Jakobsen

10. Hungry Bunny - Claudia Rueda

11. Leaf Man - Lois Ehlert

12. Fall Walk - Virginia Brimhall Snow

13. In November - Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Jill Kastner

14. Winter is Coming - Tony Johnston, illustrated by Jim LaMarche

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Welcome to Happy Outdoor Families, the podcast that encourages and equips families to spend more time exploring and playing together outside. I am your host, Emily Isenbarger, and I hope that as you listen in each week you will feel inspired and excited about reconnecting your kids, and yourselves, with the outdoors - whatever that looks like for you. Join with me as we dive into the beauty, the benefits, and the challenges of taking life outside. Thanks for listening!

I am so excited to be back with you and today we are talking about prioritizing the outdoors in our homeschool routine. I absolutely love free, unstructured time outside. But there are also a number of activities that we plan and carry out more intentionally and find a lot of value in those things too. Today i’m sharing three ways that we incorporate the outdoors into our homeschool and preschool learning - through weekly nature groups, Tinkergarten classes, and through simply taking our lessons into the backyard or park. These also happen to be my favorite parts of homeschooling and i hope that these ideas can bring some joy to your home as well.

My Tinkergarten page: https://www.tinkergarten.com/leaders/emily.isenbarger?&tga=2b2a57b86ac0

My FAVORITE bins for homeschool supplies: https://www.michaels.com/14.5qt-latchmate-plus-mint-storage-box-with-tray-by-simply-tidy/10467879.html?r=g&cm_mmc=PLASearch-_-google-_-MICH_Shopping_US_N_Papercraft_N_Smart_BOPIS_N-_-&Kenshoo_ida=&kpid=go_cmp-9972406487_adg-102401876362_ad-433378147614_pla-1408204284127_dev-c_ext-_prd-10467879&gclid=Cj0KCQjwm9yJBhDTARIsABKIcGa-H13J_Z4TlmWkWwpmCkiBzqjq2VyaLCd0fAstG1B6ZX7mf_5o9OQaAhYuEALw_wcB

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Hello happy outdoor families! Welcome to happy outdoor playtime. This segment of the podcast is designed for kids from babies up through the elementary years, and their grown ups, to listen to together. Each week I will bring you a simple play invitation that I hope will be a jumpstart into some really fun play outside! Ideally, you will listen to this podcast outside, in your special nature space where you can play.

Today we are going to be making art! Creating art is a wonderful way for all of us to express ourselves. We will be thinking about what materials we can use to make paint to create our very own works of art outside. The supplies you will need today are water, a paintbrush, a container like a bucket or bowl, and some paper. You will also want to have dirt available for creating mud paint.

Enjoy your playtime!!

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Rachel Tidd is the author of the Wild Math® and Wild Reading™ Curriculums and a leading proponent of integrating the outdoors and the natural materials in math education. She became interested in teaching and learning outside after watching her two children thrive in an outdoor forest preschool. Prior to founding Wild Learning, Rachel obtained extensive teaching experience as an elementary and special education teacher and as a homeschool parent. She holds a Master’s degree in Elementary and Special Education from Bank Street College of Education and a B.S. in Environmental Science from SUNY- College of Environmental Science and Forestry. She enjoys walks in nature, good books, handwork such as knitting and sewing, traveling, and strong coffee. Today, Rachel and I talk all about teaching and learning outside, how simple it can be AND how beneficial.

I am so excited to share this interview with you! And just a quick head’s up - this Wednesday’s play invitation will be the 40th installment of this podcast and will mark the end of Season 1 of the podcast. I will be back with you the first week of September when I am very excited to share our outdoor homeschool plans for the year, because this year we’ve got one foot in public school, like you heard me share about last week, and one in homeschool. In the meantime, I would love it so much if you would celebrate 40 episodes with me this week and share YOUR favorite episode of Happy Outdoor Families so far - share it with a friend, or on social media, or in a review!

Now, go find Rachel on social media and check out her amazing curriculum resources!

IG: @discoverwildlearning

Website: www.discoverwildlearning.com

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Hello happy outdoor families! Welcome to happy outdoor playtime. This segment of the podcast is designed for kids from babies up through the elementary years, and their grown ups, to listen to together. Each week I will bring you a simple play invitation that I hope will be a jumpstart into some really fun play outside! Ideally, you will listen to this podcast outside, in your special nature space where you can play.

Today we are going to be exploring textures, hunting for textures in our spaces and playing a guessing game using our sense of touch. For today's playtime, you will need a paper bag, or cloth, or something else that you can conceal nature objects inside. You and your child will be feeling the hidden objects and trying to guess what they are by their texture.

Enjoy your playtime!!

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This week I’m thinking a lot about the major changes that are happening to our family’s schedule as my oldest daughter starts at our local public school. Listen in as I share about how we are managing outdoor time on a public school schedule, as well as ideas for how to support and encourage your local school in spending more time - both play and learning time - outside. 

Some resources that I mention in the episode:

Study on outdoor time: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44097-3

KidsGardening.org

Wild Math/Wild Reading https://discoverwildlearning.com/

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