The Night Listening Game

The sound of the insect orchestra swells and throbs night after night, from midsummer until autumn ends and the frosty nights make the tiny players stiff and numb, and finally the last note is stilled in the long cold. An hour of hunting out the small musicians by flashlight is an adventure any child would love. It gives him a sense of the night's myster and beauty, and of how alive it is with watchful eyes and little, waiting forms.

The game is to listen, not so much to the full orchestra, as to the separate instruments, and to try to locate the players. Perhaps you are drawn, step by step, to a bush from which comes a sweet, high-pitched, endlessly repeated trill. Finally you trace it to a little creature of the palest green, with wings as white and insubstantial as moonlight. Or from somewhere along the garden path comes a cheerful, rhythmic chirping, a sound as companionable and homely as a fire crackling on a hearth or a cat's purr. Shifting your light downward you find a black mole cricket disappearing into his grassy den.

Notes:

Where a child is taught to distinguish the individual sounds of the insects from the swarm and seek them out to identify by flashlight.

Folksonomies: nature education wonder child rearing

Taxonomies:
/pets/birds (0.496753)
/art and entertainment/shows and events/classical concert (0.465316)
/sports/hunting and shooting (0.299105)

Keywords:
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The Sense of Wonder

Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Carson , Rachel (1998-05-11), The Sense of Wonder, HarperCollins, Retrieved on 2011-06-12

Folksonomies: education wonder children

Schemas

05 JUN 2011

Raising Enlightened Children

Memes about raising children as a spiritual naturalist, with a sense of awe for the Universe and reverence for the laws of nature.

Folksonomies: spiritual naturalism wonder atheism