1000 Hours Challenge- How well did we do?

Having children you tend to find yourself outside a lot. With all that energy they have being outside seems like the easiest way for them to expel it. Even if you're not a fan of spending time outside, you sit at a bench with a book while your kiddo runs mad circles around the playground. So when you hear a challenge called 1000 Hours Outside, you snicker and think to yourself "We spend at least that much time being outdoors!". That's exactly what I thought we took the challenge in October 2013. Once we started tracking our hours I learned it only seems like we spent tons of time outside. In actuality we were out on average only an hour or two a day, even on the weekends. In the spirit of a challenge we stepped up our effort to get outside. While we were giving it our best shot, Mother Nature gave us her best shot to keep us inside that winter with double digit negative temperatures. We didn't reach the goal of 1000 Hours, ending 218 hours short. The affect of the challenge had us getting creative about ways to spend just a few more hours outside. We made so many memories during the challenge and learned there were some activities we really enjoyed that we hadn't thought of, geocaching is still a favorite as well as walking/hiking different nature trails. I thought my boys would be bored to tears having to walk miles of trails with no electrical outlets to recharge their devices and only our own company. They surprised me and become so animated being away from all constant stimulation. I have their undivided attention, other than taking in our surroundings we talk about everything and anything. Their curiosity is peaked every time, more often than not when we get home they want to research the plants, trees, birds, and especial the snakes. Even my more cautious child, Jacob, will have us venturing off on different trails just to see where they go.

While we did not reaching the goal, I consider our first attempt a success. When I mentioned attempting the challenge again last April my boys were all for it, they started making lists of places to visit and favorite trails to revisit. We started off strong as summer was just around the corner and nice weather makes us itch to get outside. We were averaging 28 hours a week in the beginning, then around then end of November we got busy with school routine and just kind of stopped going outside. After Christmas it was near impossible to pull the boys away from the tablets they got as gifts. Finally around the end of February we started get outside for a few hours here and there. With the end of the "Challenge" quickly approaching their competitive nature showed through and as they tried cramming in as many hours as we could spare. Yesterday was the last day for our second attempt and we again fell short, not even reaching our total from before. We only managed 754 hours.

We're going to give it one more go, third times the charm. I believe it is important for children of all ages to get outside, but I've noticed that as they get older it can be more challenging to actually get them outside. I follow 1000 Hours Outside both on Facebook and Instagram, they have encouraged so many families to get the kiddos out and unplugged from the electronics. I also noticed that most of those families have young children, preschool/ early elementary age. When my boys were younger it was so much easier to get them outside, I almost never had to ask them. They would be out there from sun up to sun down and be filthy from head to toe. Now we have more things pulling at their attention, I lose 7 hours a day to get them outside due to them being in school. There is also the time spent on homework, after school activities, weekly appointments for occupational therapy, and time spent at friends' houses (which is usually indoors playing video games). I'm set to prove that although my boys are older (15, 11, and 10) that the goal of 1000 hours can be reached. Some days I have begged, pleaded, bribed, and drugged them outside. I have told them to get in the car we were leaving without telling them our destination, only for them to enjoy themselves once at the nature trail. I don't have the playground for them to burn off energy at anymore as they are "too grown" for that; we have gotten some looks at the squirt zone when my 6 ft 15 year old is running around with his brothers. We get creative. We try to keep things are low cost (free whenever possible ) and we try to mix it up so they don't get bored or things begin to feel routine.

While I have "big kids" they are still kids and enjoy being outside. They still like to be goofy and aren't afraid of looking ridiculous. Here's a review of how we've spent some of our 754 hours.

Lake St. Clair Metropark

We love visiting Lake St. Clair Metropark (Metro Beach to us locals), and usually make a couple trips a year. There is plenty to do and we tend to spend the whole day there. Besides the beach (we don't swim though), there's a splash pad, picnic areas, playground, shuffle board, fishing areas, nature center, and a bike/walking path that loops around the park and ends somewhere miles down Metro Parkway. Recently we learned there is a nature trail also.

We hadn't planned on marking this nature trail off our list just yet, but so glad that we did. I had promised the boys we'd go for our first family bike ride after all homework was completed. By the time homework was done, the bikes were dug out of the shed, air put in the tires, and were loaded up we were getting a really late start on our ride.

We normally park near the nature center, so after our ride we can stop in for a quick look around to see what new things may have been added. Due to our late start we thought we'd start with the nature center, but they had just closed. We started off on our typical bike path the leads out of the park. Normally we bike to McDonald where we have dinner as a special treat before heading back, but today we weren't stopping to eat. We rode the whole 3 miles to McDonald where we turned around and headed back to the car. I was so impressed with my boys for a couple of reasons. 1. They didn't even ask to eat at McDonald. 2. They hadn't asked to take any breaks during our whole bike ride. 3. One of Jordan's pedals fell off before the first mile marker and he just kept on riding.

Not being conditioned to ride for so long, our backsides were a bit sore. We chose to stretch out our muscles by walking the nature trail. We have only walked this trail one other time, as part of our 2013 Winter Bucket List. The boys really liked seeing everything turning green and the trail waking up from it's winter sleep.

We had barely started our walk when Joey noticed a leopard frog hidden on the side of the trail. Joey isn't normally the one to notice little details and this little guy had some great camouflage. After finding the frog, the frog hunt was on! My boys started really looking to see if they could find any more. Jordan found another leopard frog near the edge of the river. Jacob was searching so diligently without success. There was a large pond and Jacob feeling discouraged that he hadn't found a frog wanted to take the shortcut around the pond and head home. Nature had other plans for us; as we turned towards the shortcut we saw some Canadian geese with their goslings. Not wanting to test the new parents we took the long way around.

The long way held some surprises for us. First, we saw a pair of swans. Obviously they have long necks, but we didn't realized just how long until we watched then dive through the algae. Then the most wonderful thing happen, Jacob found a frog! Not another leopard frog like his brothers, but a good sized bull frog. We also seen another pair of ducks (we saw many ducks in pairs along our bike ride also).

As we were leaving the park we had one more surprise creature, a groundhog. He was so close to the road that I just had to turn around and try to snap a picture of him. While he hadn't moved when we drove past him the first time, we scared him away when we slowed down to take his picture (must be camera shy...lol).

Click here to learn more about Lake St, Clair Metropark

and

Click here to learn more about their nature center

Seven Ponds Nature Center

Lots of nature walks seems to currently working for us. It's something I can get all 3 boys to do with little complaint and for the most part they don't fuss at each other while we're walking. The bonus is we can add our time on the trails to our goal of 1000 hours outside. The have a couple trails we walk often, but the boys were getting bored with them. We all researched other trails and nature centers near our home, that we had not known about. We compiled at list of 17 places within 30 minutes to an hour away, all but 3 are new places for us.


A few weeks back we checked out one of our new places. We really lucked out on the day we visited, we were there on an "Eco Day" and there were extra activities to do. While we would have been happy just checking out the center and walking the trail, the extra activities provided some awesome learning experiences. The reptiles that were visiting for the day from Lansing were a huge hit with my kiddos. Jordan is very comfortable around snakes, but the other two not so much. Jordan wasted no time asking to hold different types of snakes. Joey and Jake were standing back and preferred watching the turtles and the snakes that were in tanks. Joey doesn't like to touch snakes because of his sensory issues, he shies away from cold and slimy looking things. Jacob is cautious with most animals, and has a healthy respect for the fact that animals all have potential to revert to their primal instincts. The group that brought the snakes were very knowledgeable and answered the boys many questions. We were even given the opportunity to watch one of the snakes eat a frog. I have to admit, I thought it was a very cool thing to see!! We must have spent about 45 minutes playing with the reptiles. Within that 45 minutes Joey managed to push himself to hold a snake.

 Next on our list was to dissect owl pellets. The boys were corrected when they exclaimed that we'd be digging through owl poop. Jacob was very relieved when he heard it's more like a hairball. Each of the boys' pellets held different surprises. Jordan had an extra jaw bone, that had probably been left behind from a previous meal. Joey had a whole mouse still intact, just really compressed (Like the whole mouse; tail, still fluffy fur, and all!!). Jacob had an intact skull with the teeth still in place. We were given a chart so we could identify the bones we found and the tools needed to carefully dissect the pellet. We found it easier to use our hands to peel the "fur pieces" away. We were given bags and brought our bones home.

 After a quick hand washing, we finally looked through the nature center. This one had an awesome "touch table" in the center of the room. There were so many things we have not had the opportunity to touch before. There were other things to check out along the walls, but this table was by far the coolest part for us. They had a whole wall that was a window for bird watching, were we watched a woodpecker. There was also a really neat tunnel thing the smaller guys could crawl through and poke their heads up in the beaver dam display. A whole room was dedicated to different types of birds and some displays of there habitats.



We briefly visited a craft room they had set up for the day. Jordan and Jacob planted seeds in plastic bags while Joey made monsters using bottle caps. Two of my boys made "rain tubes" using paper towel tubes, fasteners, rice and beans. Then slowly I lost their attention for the other crafts as they drifted back to the reptile room.




When I walked into the room I found Joey actually holding a snake, not just any snake a big black rat snake. Jacob also worked up the courage to "pet" a snake, although he still wasn't interested in holding any of them. After a while of watching the snakes wind their way around my children, we headed outside to the nature trail.

 We didn't make it far before we made a detour to learn about bees. We were promised a honey stick if we could locate the queen bee. So while Jordan and Jake searched the small comb for the queen, Joey asked a bunch of questions about what a bee keeper does. Joey got to practice spinning a couple empty frames, learn what the smoker was for and how it effected the bees and learn the different layers of the hive. While Joey was learning all this cool stuff the other two were still searching for the queen bee (they had also been listen to the guy as he explain things to Joey), they were determined to earn a honey stick. We searched for that queen for about 20 minutes, before the guy took pity on us and gave honey sticks for trying. As we were walking away he found the queen and called us back, we hadn't been able spot her with the blue dot they place on her back because she had been tucked away in a corner laying eggs.

 Then it was finally time to tackle the trail. We were told we should stop by "turtle pond" along our way, there usually are a bunch of turtles and frog you can spot easily. The turtles were sitting all lines up on a branch and looked liked like a bunch of tiny helmets. The frogs were all over the place just blending in and being frogs. We had seen a bull frog but when we got closer for a better look, he jumped into the water. From there we continued our 1.5 mile walk along the trail. While everything was still brown and not much to look at, we did make a few discoveries such as a beaver dam and a lot of trees with beaver teeth marks on them. The path itself was a nice change for the boys, instead of just the dirt ground there were wooden planks to walk on and a cool bridge to cross over. The boys also did some climbing around as there isn't any poison ivy to watch out for yet.

Click here to visit the home page for Seven Ponds