Connect with Beyond Your Doorstep!

A fun nature show for kids 6-12 years old. Host Peter Schriemer is a young naturalist who truly believes that critters are cool. In each 30-minute episode, Peter explores the view that all creatures are special and have a purpose… even bugs!

Peter Schriemer (rhymes with “dreamer”) shares an incredible amount of enthusiasm for wildlife, learning, and fun! He has always loved science and nature and grew up watching wildlife programs on TV. With this influence and a home video camera at age 16, Peter and his younger brother, Mark, started videotaping wildlife around the yard and on vacations. They had so much fun that Peter decided to create a hands-on nature show—and Beyond Your Doorstep was born!

Between the completion of the “North Woods Habitats,” and videos Peter produced for the web site, Beyond Your Doorstep has received the NRB’s People’s Choice Award, the Dove Foundation’s Family Seal of Approval, and 5 Telly Awards.
Through high quality educational programming,

Beyond Your Doorstep inspires children to explore, learn, and share their experience with friends and family, so that many people will discover the joys of going beyond their doorstep.

Give Your Kids a Green Hour

A Green Hour is time for unstructured play and interaction with the natural world. In 2007, the National Wildlife Federation launched GreenHour.org, an online resource providing parents the inspiration and tools to make the outdoors a part of daily life. NWF recommends that parents give their kids a “Green Hour” every day. This can take place in a garden, a backyard, the park down the street, or any place that provides safe and accessible green spaces where children can learn and play. Scientific research shows kids are happier and healthier when outdoor time is in better balance with indoor time.

And now, as part of Be Out There, Green Hour is strengthened by National Wildlife Federation’s nearly 75 years of experience connecting people with nature, including:

Dozens of Green Hour’s outdoor activities.
NatureFind: Find nearby parks, trails and nature centers with a few clicks.
Frequently updated tips and articles to help you get outside every day.
Award-winning children’s magazines: Ranger Rick® , Big Backyard® , Wild Animal Baby®, & Just For Fun.
Wildlife Watch
Schoolyard Habitats
Great American Backyard Campout & National Wildlife Week
No Child Left Inside federal legislation and other public policy efforts

Today’s kids spend far less time outside than their parents did. For many of them, tweets are not bird calls but 140-character sound bites. Wii, the electronic game, has replaced “wheee!” — the squeal of delight. Something important has been lost. And Green Hour has helped many families find it.

Games

“What Doesn’t Belong?” Along a natural trail, place unnatural items in spots both easy and hard to spot (depending, too, on the age and experience of the children). The number and nature of the items will also vary in reference to age and experience. Here are some things you can set out: pop/soda cans, plastic bottles, candy wrappers, caps and other small clothing items, Styrofoam cups, and so forth. After you have done your “planting,” take the child/children on the walk. If there are more than one, have them first silently observe (so each can be looking) and then report when you go back through. In the end, of course, each item should be retrieved and properly disposed of.  “Find The Bottle!” [This was a blast with even our preschool grandchildren.] In a fairly clear natural area, hide a bottle beneath something natural, but unnaturally indicated: [I took two grandchildren to one of the typical red-oak sandy clearings around us. While they closed their eyes, I buried the bottle and then make a ring of twigs around it. A real easy find. Next, I set a sort of twig arrow down, but not too close. Then I placed a few more leaves over it than was natural for the spot. Next, I just made a fairly small depression in the sand over it. Finally, I tidied up the whole clearing with a leafy branch and then buried the bottle with only the very tip of rim showing.] This helps to make the children aware of what is natural and not natural—becoming real nature sleuths. As the kids become older and more experienced, you can make it harder. Finally, you can graduate to the sport of orienteering [ http://www.orienteeringunlimited.com/aboutorienteering.htm ] and geo-caching [ http://www.geocaching.com/ ].  

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Kid tips:

“Every Day Outside.” Make it a goal to have your kids experience the outdoors every day of the year. “The weather outside is frightful” but the kids can find it delightful! “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these” parents from getting their kids outdoors at least once each day. This isn’t just running them from the house to the car. It means getting out and deliberately examining what’s happening in the creation. It is important to make your children aware of what’s going on in the natural world every day: windy or calm, sunny or cloudy, wet or dry, hot or cold, humid or arid, where the sun and moon are, what the birds are doing, what the natural sounds and scents are. Be bold, dress the kids appropriately, and go out and experience rain, fog, snow—even blizzard-force winds (dressed appropriately and close to safety, of course). [At least one time each year, I get my warmest gear on and go sit outside in a howling snowstorm for as long as I can take it. John Muir did this in a Sierra windstorm--up in a tall tree. Nearly killed him, but he DID get to feel what it was like to be a tree in a windstorm!]

Make your own weather station and have older kids make written records of daily conditions. If you have a TV, watch The Weather Channel with them once a day and see how close your own weather station is to what is reported on TV.

Make sure your child knows where their food comes from. Go to a dairy farm or a poultry farm. Show them wheat fields, corn fields, soy bean fields and explain which of their foods comes from each. [Which, of course, requires some learning on the part of the parent or other caregiver!]

Make the children you care for aware of the importance of water to their lives: Rain, clouds, humidity, soil moisture. They should know what happens to the stuff they flush, where storm water goes, where their drinking water comes from. Take a tour of the local water treatment plant and waterworks plant.

Make sure the children understand what happens to the trash that comes from your home. [In Grand Rapids there is a very efficient and low-polluting incinerator that produces electricity from tons of trash---and they provide educational tours.]

Seek to observe the Sabbath Principle with your child. [We will need lots of tips from the WOC community to learn the many ways to do this.]

Games, games, games! Make everything a game. Pretend you are an animal and have your child guess what animal it is. Do treasure hunts using natural things as waypoints (tree, bush, grassy spot, and so forth).

Climb trees with your child. [Trees are our Creator's "monkey bars!].

Safe free play: Because there is so much risk from evil people today, parents seldom allow their children to just “go outside and play” as my generation did. But kids do need free play: maybe playing house under a pine tree or making a hut under low-hanging bushes. Parents just have to make a point be outside with the kids—which is not a bad thing. Around the house, this is fairly easy. But kids also need to get out in the boondocks too. Here is where community comes in. Sets of parents can take their kids out to wild areas they have examined to make sure there are no high risks like deep rushing streams, patches of poison oak or ivy, obvious stinging insect nests, and so forth. Then individual adults can space themselves out on a perimeter that allows them to keep an eye on the kids as they play. The length and depth of this experience can vary with maturity and experience—of the kids and the parents! Safety tape from the hardware store, in fact, can be tied to trees and bushes to set boundaries. “Soft” parents or grandparents can bring along lawn chairs and read books and magazines as the kids play. “Tough” ones can prop themselves against trees or sit on “tuffits” like Miss Muffet. [Better to read than books and magazines, however, are field guides to natural features that surround you. No parent knows everything about the local flora and fauna.] All sorts of teaching can go on before, during, or after free play. Nothing lifts a mom or dad’s spirit like watching their kids grow in wonder as they discover the world outdoors.

Make low power microscopes out of old lenses. Never pass up a garage sale bargain on old projectors—the lenses of which make great microscopic viewers. [Here's my batch--from big to tiny]:

Attach your
video camera to a TV as a substitute for binoculars or microscope. You know those cables that came with your camera that you never use!? The ones with plugs colored red and yellow. Plug those into your camera and the other end into the back of most TVs which will have with sockets color—matched to the plugs. On your TV menu select “video.” When you turn your camera on, you should see what’s on the camera—either live or already recorded. You might have a bird-feeder nearby or some animals visible through a window or a door that you can zoom in on so your child can get a close-up look. While you can record the animal and then play it back, it enhances your child’s understanding of real-time events to have the camera in its reading mode so they can look out the window or door and back at the TV to see what is happening live. That’s the binocular effect. But you can also use your camera in macro mode to get up close to a bug or something small. This is especially helpful with children who are afraid of insects.

Adopt-a-place:

This is of broader scope than just one tree. Set boundaries of one place that your child will get to know in every way possible through all seasons—from tree or bush tops to beneath the surface of the soil. Help them to identify as many plants, animals, insects, and soils as possible. Have them journal the changes and note what weather does to their place.