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| I Love Dirt!: 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature | 
 enlarge | Author: Jennifer Ward
Creators: Richard Louv, Susie Ghahremani
Publisher: Trumpeter
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy New: $6.98
You Save: $5.97 (46%)
New (39) Used (11) from $6.90
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 5295
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 144
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 5.5 x 0.5
ISBN: 1590305353
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.083
EAN: 9781590305355
ASIN: 1590305353
Publication Date: May 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
I Love Dirt! presents 52 open-ended activities to help you engage your child in the outdoors. No matter what your location—from a small patch of green in the city to the wide-open meadows of the country—each activity is meant to promote exploration, stimulate imagination, and heighten a child's sense of wonder.
To learn more about the author, Jennifer Ward, visit her website at jenniferwardbooks.com and to learn more about the illustrator, Susie Ghahremani, visit her website at boygirlparty.com.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 sad that it's come to this May 14, 2008
28 out of 39 found this review helpful
As a collection of outdoor activities for adults to do with children there's very little fault I can find in the premise of the execution. Most of what is included are simple outings, grouped by season, that allow parents and children to commune with nature of a manageable scale. There are bird watching activities, cloud watching games, backyard camping or a general nocturnal excursion. All with goals attainable in most parts of the country and with little investment. Each of the activities also includes a "Help Me Understand" box with select questions and answers that a child might ask.
But all in all, it's sad that it's come to this.
Going out into nature should be, well, natural. It shouldn't feel guided by a book that provides one activity a week - giving the air of a constitutional duty as opposed to enjoying the enterprise. In the introduction, Richard Louv talks about how when he was a child in the 1950s he would go out into the nearby woods every chance he got. But in half a century we have become a nation of people who must schedule their children's playdates, supervise their destinations with cell phones and text messages, and must budget time to shove our children into nature in order to learn (and hopefully respect) what the Earth Mother has to teach us.
Kids just don't "go out" the way they used to, the way I used to. Physically the neighborhoods haven't necessarily changed, but our relationship to them, and our priorities about this free time, has changed. We no longer trust our children to trundle off to places where they can explore on their own, nor do we allow the time for such behavior by preferring to over-program kids into structured, organized teams and activities. And so, to fill this deficit in our culture, we have books to help us attempt to round out the experiences of our children.
In books like this aimed at parents there is an unavoidable undercurrent that the parent in need of such a book either won't find the book, or will feel condescended to. The point where I feel this most is the little check box at the end of each chapter that summarizes the purpose and goal of the activity. "Encourages exercise and well-being," "Stimulates wonder, experimentation, and a feeling of exhilaration," phrases like these give the book it's pedantic feel and sours everything that proceeds it. It's one thing to have a book as a reference for what to do with kids in he great out-of-doors, it's another entirely to have to be told that the exercise will "Stimulate caring and stewardship for living things." And what if it doesn't, is the exercise a failure? Is there something wrong with parent or child? There's little a family can do with these exercises if they don't go as planned but turn around and go home.
Also, the problem with the "Help Me Understand" sections is the presumption that a child will only have one question per activity. If the exposure to, say, a spider's web or a bird's feather opens a child's imagination there is clearly an opportunity to explore further on line or at the library. But to only address one bit of trivia per outing seems a bit shallow.
The publisher feels the activities will appeal to children from 4 to 9 but I can tell you most of what's included wouldn't float with my girls beyond the age of 6 or so. So it's for the curious, the very young, and the parents who might not otherwise introduce their children to nature without a guide.
 Great to help kids find their inner Thoreau in the "Green Age" May 30, 2008
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately." Exactly the tone "I Love Dirt" resurects at a time when we, as parents, are eager to motivate our kids away from tv sets and video games to spend more time outside.
"I love dirt" could not be more timely in an age when it is impossible to escape the "Green" revolution. The book is overflowing with guidance/reminders on how to approach the world through the eyes of a child. I think the text might also be super for older children and pre-teens to inspire more scientifically complex thoughts about their environment. Each chapter is succinct and serves as a primer to prompt a nature expedition limited only by imagination.
I offer due respect to the other reviewers, who perhaps took too personally what is really and ultimately a child-geared set of suggestions and not an adult's how-to ala the "Idiots" or "Dummies" guides. I freely admit (as a card carrying PhD life scientist) that I have not been outside to scrutinize the texture of bark, questioned the density of a random rock, or made note of the time of day for a particular bird call in quite a long time (though I have paid some attention to the bird that sounds like my cell phone ring).
I think, if anything, the perceived simplicity of this book that bugged other reviewers IS EXACTLY THAT...IT IS SIMPLE. Well done Ms. Ward, you have succeeded in your obvious intent. Accolades to the nature-nuts who can quickly disappear into nature the minute they strap on their boots and throw granola into their backpacks. For most of us, it is actually something of a challenge to step outside and reduce the apparent complexity of the world into the actual (beautiful) modesty our surroundings offer. During a college Botany course, I recall taking nearly 3 hours of sitting alone in a forest preserve writing random thoughts in a nature journal before I really began to realize my surroundings and escape thoughts of what I had to accomplish during the rest of the day (which, as I look back, was relatively little). Honestly, with a full-time job, two children, and a dog, I suspect it might take me a little longer these days to escape my mental to-do list and allow myself to be consumed by nature in a way that will be most beneficial to my two-year-old. My sincere gratitude to the author for facilitating such. Indeed, children are more inclined to explore on a very primitive level. "Dirt" very casually assists us (the busy and distracted adults) to see and hear the world beyond our blackberries (unless you are growing some) and iPods.
If anything, the title of this book does not do justice to the wide variety of activities that consider all seasons, weather, time of day, and region. This is a fabulous book that will only complement the existing motivation the young generation will need to continue to find ways to live in a "Green" world.
I highly recommend this book.
discover, get dirty, have some old-fashioned fun! May 15, 2008
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
Dirt, leaves, worms, bugs, stars, raindrops and watching trees grow...all that fills i love dirt to capacity with 52 activities for parents and kids to do together. If I read thorough a book and can't help but dog-ear the pages I know it is a great one. i love dirt by Jennifer Ward is a book about kids, and exposing them to the nature and outdoors while siultaneously leaning of the wonderful nature of earth science. From bugs, to leaves, from trees to snowmen this is a book to enjoy through all the seasons. i love dirt is divided up into activities that would work best in the seasons of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter so that children and adults can observe and enjoy every new stage as it comes and admire what is different and beautiful about them.
i love dirt is Jennifer Ward's antidote to the current situation of "nature deficit" that children are experiencing. The generations previous to this one relied on nature. Our schools were even let out and in during the communities harvest time, and daylight savings time was initially agreed upon because of the impact another hour of light could do in the farmer's life. It was not all working outside, but also the playing in nature and with nature that was important. Participating in such activities as picnics, mid-afternoon fishing trips, laying under the sky's blanket to see just one shooting star, and the amazing world of mud pie making! To go outside and play, to put on rain gear and jump in puddles, or camp outside in the backyard on a warm summer night, or to explore the woods and make a fort these need not be things of the past. Outdoor activities are a learning and teaching experience that if neglected will fill our nation with a bunch of kids who can learn through books, but not from the beauty that surrounds them. Weather in the city, or country there are opportunities in i love dirt to get down and dirty and feel the particles of nature on your skin.
I personally loved this book so much, seriously does it get any better than a book that discusses all the fun things you can do to learn about nature and the processes that engulf us humans? Each section of the book, each activity has a short (kid friendly) explanation of the activity and its importance and a Help Me Understand question and answer as well. Here are some Q and A examples:
Q: What is Dirt?
A: Dirt is a mixture of all kinds of things: broken rock and stones, minerals and organic matter such as broken down bits of plants. (p.44)
Q: What makes new plants sprout in the spring?
A: They get more sunlight than they were getting in the winter. In the spring, the days get longer, brighter and warmer. These things help new plants to grow. (p.4)
There are so many more tid-bit facts of things every child asks, or at least mine do! I have decided to use this book for our outdoor explorations. I am very impressed with Jennifer Ward and i love dirt, too! This would not just be a great book to use for parents, but also for grandparents, and teachers as well. I am going to use this book for our science course when we begin homeschooling next year. To be honest though, it is all but burning though my hands, and since it is spring right now, I really see no need to wait...we're going to dive into this one with rubber boots, or barefoot! For when nature calls, we listen!
One word --Uninspiring May 19, 2008
8 out of 19 found this review helpful
This book is full of simple minded ways to get in touch with nature. For example look at the bugs, look at the dirt, look at the clouds. These are all great activities but anyone who has a child already does all of these things. This book could be summed up as unoriginal.
 Meets a Need for SOME People, Not All June 25, 2008
8 out of 13 found this review helpful
The book is organized around the seasons. It is designed to provide one nature experience per week of the year, that is, a focused, narrow-topic nature activity is laid out for the family to do.
In my opinion this is for use with children under ten years old. The reason why is it not good for children over ten is that some of the activities are too babyish for older kids (go play in a puddle etc.). The shallow/introductory information is suitable for preschoolers and elementary grade kids. Kids aged possibly nine and ten may ask more questions than this book supplies.
The book basically gives activities to do with young children outside. If the adult knows not much about nature, this book provides talking points and ideas of what to do. Encourage the child to touch the water, swish in the water and see what happens and so forth. There are suggestions to have children do things and then to discuss what happens. Factual information is provided that is good if the adult doesn't know a lot about nature.
The educational talking point claims to fulfill a learning objective. Each objective is at the end of each chapter, such as "stimulates awareness of one's surroundings" and "stimulates caring and stewardship for all living things". I'm not quite sure why the author felt that the parents needed those learning objectives spelled out. Perhaps she intended that public school teachers would use this book and would need that information so they could fit it into their curriculum or into the No Child Left Behind's objectives?
Conversely if the parent or grandparent already knows this basic information then the book's information could be too simplistic and not very useful; it could be considered dumbed down and unnecessary for some adults.
Some of these things end up feeling staged to me. For example if the parent intends to discuss where animals go during the day, but the child doesn't take that bait and run with that topic, you are out of luck with your plans (and this book is all about planning). I sure hope the parent doesn't come down hard on the child for 'not following the plans'. Also if the parent prepares to do X with the child but they want to spontaneously explore other things (which is good in my opinion) the adult may feel frustrated that they prepared or ill-equipped to answer questions about Y.
The people who are more spontaneous in general may feel this book is too limiting, but those people may not feel the need to buy a book of ideas! For me, this book is too limiting and unnecessary, but everyone is different, so perhaps this book is just what you desire.
This is a unique book. If this helps some parents get outdoors with their kids and have the children spend more time in nature then this book will have done its job (even ithe parent doesn't fully use the book as intended or if they don't get to do everything outlined in the book).
It is a very good idea to get kids outside more and outside exploring nature with their children. Hooray for that!! I applaud the author for writing this book which seems to be trying hard to give parents some tools and ideas about how to explore nature with their children (and throw in some education in the process).
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