Other Ideas For Teaching a Child a Favorite Skill

1. Identify one fruiting plant, such as the blackberry. Plan an outing to pick the fruit when it is ripe. Freeze what you do not eat, or air-express a pie to the authors of this book!

2. Read about an endangered species. Visit the animal in a zoo or nature preserve.

3. After a snowfall or rain, track a deer or other mammal or a bird. Take along plaster of paris and practice making casts of the animal's footprints.

4. Challenge a group of friends and family members to a wildlife photo contest. Your objective may be to get photographs of the most mammals in one day or to collect water related photos. Be creative. Make up goals and rules of your own.

5. Plan a birthday party to include a scavenger hunt in a park. Include hints about the natural setting, such as "the next clue will be found at the base of the tallest white pine."

6. Map the movement of the Big Dipper through the course of an entire night. Teenagers, especially, will enjoy the challenge-and the opportunity to stay up all night!

7. Study the behavior of birds by maintaining a bird feeding station. Closely observe and keep a log of the behavior of one bird species. Compare the behavior to that of another species.

8. On a family camping trip teach kids about building fires, cooking outdoors and setting up campsites. Give them sole responsibility for making one meal, or for selecting a site and setting up camp.

9. Using pungent plants like mint or sweet fern, design a ten-yard trail for a "nose hike." Blindfold the participants and start them out on their bellies. See if they can sniff their way to the end.

10. Plan a three-generational canoe trip. Follow old routes of your youth or historic pathways of fur traders and explorers.

11. Set aside a section of a flower or vegetable garden. Have your child plant a pumpkin for use as a Halloween jack-o-lantern.

12. Blindfold someone. Then lead the blindfolded person through the woods in a spirit of discovery-feeling, smelling and listening.