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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: $7.15
You Save: $5.80 (45%)
New (39) Used (9) from $6.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 12704
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
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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...
 Getting back outside October 6, 2008
"I love Dirt", is filled with wonder and knowledge. The book's title includes the line "52 activities to help you and your kids discover the wonder of nature". I would not call them activities but more along the lines of science exploration. The chapters are divided by season. The "activity" will suggest a part of nature to explore such as animals, plants, weather and space. Using a scientist's point of view you and your child discuss the elements.
Say there are falling leaves outside you could mention to your child why leaves fall, discuss gravity and the seasons, talk about the wind and the sounds it makes or how wind is used for energy. Interactions might include catching falling leaves, playing a game of collecting objects to see which ones can be moved by the wind. One idea I liked requires a game of hide-n-seek. First explain what camouflage is then ask your child to think about how different bugs and animals in nature use markings and color to survive.
I Love Dirt is a fun book filled with adventures to explore with the whole family. It is simple to read. And the best part is you do not need buy anything. In today's modern culture I think many of us forget the importance of slowing down, getting outside and allowing our children to explore and get dirty. For parents who need a little push and guidance this book is a perfect guide.
 disappointed...... September 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was lucky enough to borrow this from the library before I decided to not buy it as a gift for a friend who loves to venture into the outdoors with her children. This has to be one of the most simplistic nature books for children that I have ever seen. All of it is common sense and things that most parents would already do with their children unless you have never been outside before and live in front of the TV. I can't believe this got published. Any parent who goes outside with their children could come up with these activities in an instant without needing this book.
if by activities you mean conversational pieces... July 25, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book does NOT provide activities. It's a list of conversational pieces one could have with their children about nature -- mostly just questions. I gave it 2 stars, since some of the questions were good ones. However, I was expecting actual activities I could do with my kids. I judged this book by the cover... and was disappointed.
 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).
 I love dirt too! June 10, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
While some think it is so obvious to teach your kids the things in this book, we as a culture forget about a lot of it and this is a nice, cute, compact little reminder to get outside. There are a lot of basic concepts with this like look for colors in nature, look for birds in the sky, but this book does go beyond that and how to help your kids do more than look for birds. It ask, do you see a flying bird, what about a bright bird, a dull bird, that sort of thing. Things that people don't always do.
I think this is an inexpensive, innocent reminder to parents and grandparents to do more than say, "go outside and play", but to go play too. And to do more than play, to learn life lessons by what is going on around you.
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