Hikes for Tykes

Every Saturday from the end of March through November, families with preschoolers can participate in a fun, educational free event at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens designed to help the children interact with nature. Verna Gates, the founder and executive director of Fresh Air Family, started “Hikes for Tykes” eight years ago as a partnership between the Botanical Gardens and Fresh Air Family.

 

Gates says the 1½-hour program is designed for preschoolers and their families, and encourages hands-on learning. “We want them to enjoy it, to have a good time and to learn things,” Gates says. “It’s all about learning and enjoying, and self-exploration isn’t a bad thing. This isn’t school – it’s enrichment.”

 

Fresh Air Family, which offers more than 400 outdoor activities to an outreach of more than 10,000 people, does the programming for Hikes for Tykes two weekends, and the Gardens takes the other two weekends.

 

On a warm Saturday morning in May, Gates led a group of children on a “fairy and dragon” tour of the gardens. Gates began by telling the story of a fairy who doesn’t believe in children, instead of the other way around. After introductions, the hike begins with plant touching and inspecting before heading to the tadpole pond, where hikers can see thousands of tiny tadpoles before they turn into frogs. When Gates comes across a large leaf, she borrows some water from one of the participants to demonstrate how the plant can be used for drinking, and a few even give it a taste.

                

The treetop trail is one of the favorites of the young hikers. It’s a row of tree trunks, just the right size for walking or jumping across. Next to it is the woodpecker tree, in which the kids can touch the thousands of holes the birds have made in the bark. The coolest spot of the Gardens is the fern garden, a shady, hilly area and one of the largest collections in the Gardens. The hike winds down below a bridge where the kids climb into a large tree trunk that’s been carved out to resemble a canoe. The kids are all eager to jump in, and Gates pretends they are on a ship and lets them use their imaginations to tell a story.

               

 The most hands-on part of the hike comes near the end, when it’s time to build the fairy houses. Gates takes the kids into an area off the trail with all sorts of branches, leaves, pine straw and other items they use to make their own houses.

As the hike comes to an end, Gates gets the kids to race to the fountain to get rid of any extra energy. Our motto is “tired, dirty children,” Gates says.

 

Even though it may seem the children aren’t interested or paying attention to what Gates is describing, she says that it’s amazing to her what they take away from the hike. “They’re so smart. It’s amazing what they pick up. I’m an ethnobotanist, which is the cultural study of plants, and I like to tell stories,” she says. “I like to have a reason for children to look inside the bloom. And I teach observation skills and identify the plant and also incorporate math by counting the petals.”

 

Gates said that in the 1800s, people lived off plants for their food and medicine and she tries to communicate that knowledge. Most of her stories have a relationship with plants.

 

Taylor Steele, the volunteer education coordinator at the Gardens, says Hikes for Tykes is about connecting communities and families. “We have aligned missions and goals with Fresh Air Family, and this is something in which we can partner together to focus on family activities to get children and parents out in nature,” Steele says.

 

Steele says activities entertain, inform and engage children on the awareness of nature around them. “As we do the hike, depending on what time of year, we have different themes,” he says. Some of the themes for the hikes include Forest Fairy Houses, Wings and Things of Spring (birds, butterflies, etc.), What Would a Dr. Seuss Garden Look Like?, I Spy (kids have to remember things and look for things in nature), and Hikes Inspired By Dinosaurs.

 

“On one hand we’re engaging kids and the other we are engaging parents,” he says.

 

Nancy Crowley, retired school principal, a grandmother who brought kids to a hike, says, “This is the best field trip I have ever been on. The kids loved it.”              

 

For information on Hikes for Tykes and other Fresh Air Family programs, visit http://www.freshairfamily.org.

 

Leah Ingram Eagle is a Birmingham freelance writer.

 

 

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UPCOMING HIKES TO CHECK OUT THIS MONTH:

• July 4 – Hikes for Tykes, Birmingham Botanical Gardens, 10 am. Free Admission, Free “hike.” Join MissAnwen for a creative and imaginative tour through the Gardens, just made for little hands! A learning experience designed for preschoolers and their families.  
• July 11 – Hikes for Tykes, Birmingham Botanical Gardens, 10 am Free admission, free “hike.”
•  “I Can Name 50 Trees Today!” Walk through The Gardens discussing trees and what we use them for (shade, shelter, food, oxygen, medicine, etc.). Read I Can Name 50 Trees Today! On the walk back look for some of the trees that were seen in the book and what they might be used for.
• July 18 – ,  Hikes for Tykes, Birmingham Botanical Gardens, 10 am. Free Admission, Free “hike.” Join storyteller, Verna Gates, for a Fairy and Dragon Tour of the Gardens.  It will be legendary!  Stories and hands-on activities designed for preschoolers and their families. 
• July 25 – Hikes for Tykes, Birmingham Botanical Gardens, 10 am. Free Admission, Free “hike.”  

 

 

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