I Love Dirt and The Kids Nature Book: Two Reviews

 I Love Dirt is a cute little book that gives ideas for kids activities during each of the four seasons. The ideas are all wonderful ones, but I found that, at least for our family, they were much too basic.... things like going outside at night and looking at stars, or listening and watching for birds in the spring. Those are great things to do with children, no argument there, they are just things we already do and don't need a book to be inspired for that. However, I am guessing that there are many families out there who don't get out into nature much, and the simplistic ideas in this book would inspire them. I found the ideas all wonderful, but I was looking for a book that would provide fresh ideas for exploring in nature, but I didn't find much here. One idea that did stand out, however, was called Handy Plants. It talked about putting an old sock on, walking through some tall grass or other area and letting the seeds stick to the sock. Then putt the sock in a pot, water it, and see what grows. That definitely sounds fun to me! So, in my opinion, this book won't be of much help to those who get out into nature regularly, but may be just what the less adventurous need.

The Kids Nature Book is a book that is broken down into a calender of sorts, with an idea of something to do or learn about each day. Unfortunately, many of the days adventures require being either at the coast or in the dessert, or somewhere that it is snowing, so no one could actually check off each day's project unless they were flying across the globe. But, the book does have some great ideas. Most of them are for grade school kids, so things that are above Finn's comprehension, but there were still a few ideas that I loved: Making a connect the dot with constellations, making your own weather vane and wind chimes, leaf printing, and making an Indian corn necklace. This one is worth checking out, especially for you home-schoolers looking for some new projects with nature.