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Balanced and Barefoot Blog

Outdoor play and the unrestricted freedom of movement-based programs are vital for children’s cognitive and physical development, and help ensure that kids grow into healthy, balanced and resilient adults.

Child Born of the Woods

Every year at our TimberNook conference, teachers and providers share stories of the amazing effects TimberNook has on children in their programs. This past year, we invited six teenagers and young adults who spent many years at TimberNook to share their own stories...

Face-to-Face Interactions Matter

“Do you remember that spot? I do. It was right here where I first saw you and your sister and we just started running and laughing.” “Yeah! I remember! And we’ve been best friends ever since.” The day that this grand friendship came to be, these younger campers at...

ADD and the benefits of outdoor play

When I was eight, I would sit down at the counter after school, lay out all my homework, but I wouldn’t get anything done for 2 hours. I wouldn’t fidget or run around, but I’d get distracted, get a snack, start to do homework, and then daydream instead. My mom tried...

Beyond Skill Building: Nature & Self-Identity

The story about pancakes isn’t about the pancakes at all, really It is a Thursday evening in November, 2020 and I am staring at my weekly planner incredulously. How in the world was I going to prepare for multiple assignments and an exam next week, visit with my...

Is Snow A Loose Part?

When you hear snow in the forecast, what comes to mind? Do you think of ceaseless shoveling? A slow morning commute? Or do you think about the hours of fun you had as a child building, creating, and sledding in the endless sea of white? For me, I look back upon my...

How TimberNook Changed My Approach to Parenting

Steve and his 2 amazing daughters, Lara and Mackenzie as they work together to bring TimberNook to kids in 2019. I became a parent in the early 2000s, right at the peak of the Baby Einstein epidemic.   The working theory at the time was that the combination of...