I know this is true…

This little girl was jumping up and down, pulling her friend’s hair and screaming really loudly just before she sat down to draw….she sat like this for over half an hour filling page after page with pictures of leaves, flowers, birds and bugs….

In fact, most of the kids were more than a little boisterous but for about 45 minutes they sat down or walked around to draw….and at one point a few of them were lying on their backs looking at the clouds and counting the swallows flying overhead…

Nature is a great soother, even or especially for children who are acting overstimulated and out of control. The drawing gave them something to do, a way to interpret what they were looking at and experiencing but in the end, it wasn’t the drawing that was important…it was the amazing moment of deep stillness that fell upon them as they sat out  in the grass under the bright blue sky. Why, some of them even picked up and examined a daddy long legs!

There were almost 20 children involved in this exercise and where they were, what organization they were from doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Old Mother Nature still has a few good tricks up her sleeve….