Nature is green

You know what one of my favorite things about working with kids is? They're usually willing to go along with my nonsense.

Last year when I was teaching Spanish at a summer camp, a couple friends and I were given a group of six 10-year-olds and two hours to fill. Our only guideline was "nature activity". As we started off down a path on our nature walk, we pointed to some grass, or some ferns, and made all the kids repeat, "es naturaleza". When we asked them why they considered these plants to be nature, one kid said, "...because it's green?"

"That is exactly right."

And with that, our two hour nature walked spiraled out of control as we led these poor kids less on a journey through the woods and more on a journey through our own nonsense.

Shortly after we established that nature is green, we came across a plastic chair in a clearing in the woods. My fellow staff members and I pointed at it and asked, "is this nature?" Since these were fairly smart kids, they looked at us like we were crazy and told us that this plastic chair couldn't possibly be nature. "But it's green," we pointed out, and we made them all repeat, "es naturaleza".

In the same clearing, there were some raspberries growing on a bush. "Is this nature?" Their intelligence remained resistant to our game, as they informed us that these raspberries were obviously nature. "But they aren't green," we responded.

At this point they were beginning to understand. As we continued our nature walk, they would point to things like rocks and sticks and declare, "no es naturaleza", or they would indicate their own green t-shirt, which was obviously the most natural thing around. Now we were all playing the same game, and we were having a blast.

About an hour in, one of my friends stopped and picked up a fallen branch. "No es naturaleza!" we all yelled in unison. My friend's only response was, "this is my wand." We proceeded to spend the rest of the activity using our stick wands to cast spells on our imaginary enemies.

When we got back to camp, the kids immediately informed their friends that their green shoes were nature but those purple flowers were not, and then they used their newly acquired magic wands to turn everything into Jello, because they had deeply internalized our very important life lessons.