Let Nature Be Your Kid’s Teacher
Kids can benefit a lot from beavers, nature, and outdoor construction play.
Learn how they can help lay the foundation for your kid’s happiness and success.
Learn how they can help lay the foundation for your kid’s happiness and success.
Kids who develop a beaver-like mindset and spend more time outside with nature exploring, playing, and building are generally happier, healthier, and have a potentially brighter future. It’s because these activities stimulate and enhance the mind, body, and emotions in many ways and suppress stress, anger, and sadness, providing increased feelings of serenity, creativity, competence, independence, and overall peace of mind.
My Childhood Experience in Nature
I can tell you from my own childhood experience that it’s true. I grew up in a small town in
Kansas on a 5-acre parcel of wide-open land its outskirts, where I spent my days wandering, playing, and discovering things outdoors. I also enjoyed building forts, tinkering on bikes, and working on inventive little construction projects with my brothers in our Grandpa’s workshop.
This childhood experience, combined with my lifelong love for nature, and being taken by beaver’s inspiring behaviors, unique engineering abilities, and great ecological importance, ultimately inspired me to write my latest children's book, "Bronson Beaver Builds a Robot". However, before becoming a children’s author, I began my professional career as a graphic designer. For 20+ years, I designed logos, apparel graphics, and print and digital marketing materials for a wide range of clientele, including ESPN, Summer X Games, Winter X Games, NCAA, BASSMASTER, and U.S. National Parks.
The Beaver Way
Becoming an author and a graphic designer is partly due to me developing a beaver-like mindset and work ethic. Being resourceful, inventive, and determined were a few typical characteristics of Castor Canadensis, that helped me to achieve my goal of being creative for a living. I genuinely admire and can certainly relate to the mighty beaver in that way.
Construction Play
A beaver-like work ethic and attitude were important, but I would still need something else that was equally as essential to reach my destiny—skills. Skills that I began acquiring yet again as a kid. Yes, while I was outside wandering, playing, building, and discovering things, I was also developing the crucial STEM skills and abilities needed to be a graphic designer through construction play. I was unknowingly enhancing my spatial reasoning skills, cognitive flexibility, and divergent thinking from activities like making mud-pies, constructing bike ramps, building forts, and designing birdhouses. Furthermore, this type of construction play teaches kids to share, collaborate, and independently problem-solve when working in groups. It also allows kids to slow down, focus, and even develop patience, kindness, and empathy.
Outside Time
The final key contributor to my development and well-being as a kid, which helped me achieve my dreams of becoming a designer and writer, was the countless hours I spent outside surrounded by nature. Several studies now show that playing outside and being surrounded by nature provides a raft of mental, physical, and emotional benefits for kids. And that 5-acre parcel of land I lived on in Kansas was my laboratory, sanctuary, and playground in one. Being in nature engages kids’ senses and inquisitive minds, which leads them to think and ask questions. Kids feel happier when their outside because they can run, jump, dance, and shout, which exerts energy and, in turn, reduces excessive stress, worry, and aggression. Simultaneously, the exposure to fresh air and sunlight fuels their physical activities, which in turn strengthens their bodies and immune systems. So let's encourage our kids to get outside so they can explore, play, and build a happier, healthier, and brighter future.
About the Author
Teko writes middle-grade chapter books for boys and girls ages 7-12. He is the author of Bernard Jones Is Going Places, The Hoop Kid from Elmdale Park, and Elite Squad. When he’s not reading, writing, or designing, Teko still loves exploring outdoors, taking nature hikes, and visiting state and national parks.
My Childhood Experience in Nature
I can tell you from my own childhood experience that it’s true. I grew up in a small town in
Kansas on a 5-acre parcel of wide-open land its outskirts, where I spent my days wandering, playing, and discovering things outdoors. I also enjoyed building forts, tinkering on bikes, and working on inventive little construction projects with my brothers in our Grandpa’s workshop.
This childhood experience, combined with my lifelong love for nature, and being taken by beaver’s inspiring behaviors, unique engineering abilities, and great ecological importance, ultimately inspired me to write my latest children's book, "Bronson Beaver Builds a Robot". However, before becoming a children’s author, I began my professional career as a graphic designer. For 20+ years, I designed logos, apparel graphics, and print and digital marketing materials for a wide range of clientele, including ESPN, Summer X Games, Winter X Games, NCAA, BASSMASTER, and U.S. National Parks.
The Beaver Way
Becoming an author and a graphic designer is partly due to me developing a beaver-like mindset and work ethic. Being resourceful, inventive, and determined were a few typical characteristics of Castor Canadensis, that helped me to achieve my goal of being creative for a living. I genuinely admire and can certainly relate to the mighty beaver in that way.
Construction Play
A beaver-like work ethic and attitude were important, but I would still need something else that was equally as essential to reach my destiny—skills. Skills that I began acquiring yet again as a kid. Yes, while I was outside wandering, playing, building, and discovering things, I was also developing the crucial STEM skills and abilities needed to be a graphic designer through construction play. I was unknowingly enhancing my spatial reasoning skills, cognitive flexibility, and divergent thinking from activities like making mud-pies, constructing bike ramps, building forts, and designing birdhouses. Furthermore, this type of construction play teaches kids to share, collaborate, and independently problem-solve when working in groups. It also allows kids to slow down, focus, and even develop patience, kindness, and empathy.
Outside Time
The final key contributor to my development and well-being as a kid, which helped me achieve my dreams of becoming a designer and writer, was the countless hours I spent outside surrounded by nature. Several studies now show that playing outside and being surrounded by nature provides a raft of mental, physical, and emotional benefits for kids. And that 5-acre parcel of land I lived on in Kansas was my laboratory, sanctuary, and playground in one. Being in nature engages kids’ senses and inquisitive minds, which leads them to think and ask questions. Kids feel happier when their outside because they can run, jump, dance, and shout, which exerts energy and, in turn, reduces excessive stress, worry, and aggression. Simultaneously, the exposure to fresh air and sunlight fuels their physical activities, which in turn strengthens their bodies and immune systems. So let's encourage our kids to get outside so they can explore, play, and build a happier, healthier, and brighter future.
About the Author
Teko writes middle-grade chapter books for boys and girls ages 7-12. He is the author of Bernard Jones Is Going Places, The Hoop Kid from Elmdale Park, and Elite Squad. When he’s not reading, writing, or designing, Teko still loves exploring outdoors, taking nature hikes, and visiting state and national parks.
