Seattle's Child

Your guide to a kid-friendly city

A Parent’s Review: Toddler Tales and Trails at Seward Park

Kids seem inherently to like being outside, wandering around and poking under leaves. Toddler Tales and Trails at Seattle's Seward Park taps that innate interest and further sparks your kids' curiosity. The hour-long class starts with a short story in the park's Environmental & Audubon Center to help orient the kids to what they might see on the walk, and then it's out into the woods.

In a recent class, our first stop was the massive trunk of a lightning-scorched and broken big leaf maple. Our enthusiastic and knowledgeable field instructor, Ali McCarthy, turned the trunk into the scene of a mystery. She pointed out the gnawed-on bits of pinecone that thickly blanketed the ground at the base of the tree. Who could have made this mess? she asked. The answer was a hungry squirrel that nibbled the pinecones like cobs of corn, but he was nowhere to be found that morning.

My princess-obsessed 2-year-old perked up her ears when McCarthy pointed out the call of the golden-crowned kinglet, a tiny songbird with a distinctive yellow or orange plume on its head. "Do you know why it's called a kinglet?" she asked. "Because it has a crown!"

McCarthy peppered our walk with tidbits of trivia. Much of it went over my daughter's head, but I enjoyed learning that raccoons like to sleep together in cuddly embraces, and that you can call birds to you by making a "psssht psssht" sound that mimics bugs.

The walk, an easy loop on a wooded park trail, became a multi-sensory experience thanks to our guide. She had the kids stroke the velvety leaves of thimbleberry bushes. She crushed the leaves of an Indian plum shrub to release their cucumber-like scent. She stripped the root of an Oregon grape to reveal its yellow flesh that you can write with. "It's like a Crayola marker," McCarthy enthused.

Toddler Tales and Trails is aimed at 2- to 5-year-olds, and it moved at a pace well suited to that age group. Even the kids too young to absorb the tips for identifying bird calls or for snooping for squirrels in hollow stumps were happy to dig around a decaying nurse log for pill bugs and other creepy crawlies.

 

IF YOU GO

Where: Seward Park Environmental & Audubon Center, 5902 Lake Washington Blvd. S.,
Seattle.

When: Alternating Wednesdays (10 to 11 a.m.) and Saturdays (11 a.m. to noon); check the calendar at http://sewardpark.audubon.org.

Cost: Free for kids under 14, $4 for those over 14.

Contact: RSVP Joey Manson at 206-652-2444, ext. 103, or email jmanson@audubon.org.


Lisa Stiffler is a Seattle freelance writer and the mom of a nature-loving toddler. 

About the Author

Lisa Stiffler