OTS 166: Bridging the Classroom with Nature the OT Way
- Jayson Davies
- Jan 13
- 37 min read
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 166 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
In this episode, Discover the transformative power of the TimberNook program, where nature becomes the ultimate classroom for sensory integration, emotional growth, and creativity.
TimberNook empowers children to explore, problem-solve, and thrive through outdoor play.
Jayson and Angela discuss how this innovative approach can be woven into school curriculums and the profound benefits it offers. Get inspired by the magic of unstructured play and its critical role in child development. Tune in and reimagine what learning through play can achieve!
Listen now to learn the following objectives:
Learners will identify common sensory and motor issues affecting students.
Learners will identify the impact of outdoor play on sensory integration and child development.
Learners will apply strategies to incorporate nature-based activities into therapeutic interventions.
Learners will recognize the benefits of outdoor play for children's physical, emotional, and cognitive development.
Guests Bio
Angela J. Hanscom is a pediatric occupational therapist and founder of TimberNook—an award-winning developmental and nature-based program that has gained international popularity. She is the author of Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children. Hanscom is also a frequent contributor to The Washington Post and in 2019 won the Small Business of the Year Award for the State of New Hampshire.
Quotes
“Restore the occupation of outdoor play and make it as authentic as possible, and that's why it's so therapeutic.”
Angela Hanscom, MOTR/L
“Part of having many children of mixed ages and mixed abilities, is that it helps create that community, which helps form the individual child."
Angela Hanscom, MOTR/L
“The whole objective is to inspire, a higher level of play."
Angela Hanscom, MOTR/L
"30 minute, 20-minute recess sessions are not enough. Kids are just figuring out who am I gonna play with, what am I gonna play, and then the bell rings often. So they don't ever get into those advanced play schemes, which really work on development. I would advocate for, at least an hour recess session."
Angela Hanscom, MOTR/L
“A lot of times in the school based setting, we try to group, you know, similar age and, similar ability level potentially, but maybe that's completely wrong. Maybe we should try and mix that up a little bit.” Jayson Davies, M.A.,OTR/L
Resources
Episode Transcript
Expand to view the full episode transcript.
Jayson Davies
Hey friend, welcome to episode 166 of the OT school house podcast. My name is Jayson Davies, and I am so happy to have you here with me today. Today's episode is one that I've wanted to share with you for a long time now, and I'm very excited to say that I have found the perfect guest to properly introduce you to nature based occupational therapy services. As you may know, nature based ot services have been steadily creeping up into the world of pediatric occupational therapy. However, do nature based ot services actually lend themselves to school based occupational therapy? That is the discussion for today, is that even possible? I mean, within a public school, charter school or private school system, can nature based occupational therapy be embedded into the school day, or maybe even nature based learning? Well, you might be surprised by what today's guest has to say about that very topic. Angela Hanscom, author of balanced and barefoot and the OT, creator of the timber neck program, a nature based program for kids, is here to share how her program now supports kids in schools for up to four hours a day. Nope, I didn't say that incorrectly. I said four hours per day in a nature setting. Now that is not four hours of occupational therapy per day. Instead, it is four hours of nature based learning, based on a program designed by an OT and backed by research intrigued, yet I hope so. Angela is here to share some groundbreaking insights about how mixed age group dynamics and self directed play in natural setting to contribute to critical skills like executive functioning and conflict resolution. She's also going to share with us all about the timber neck approach and why reducing adult interference might just be the key to fostering independence and problem solving abilities within children. And if you enjoy what you hear from Angela today, I highly encourage you to join the OT school house collaborative where Angela will be presenting a course this month titled The decline of outdoor play and the rise of sensory issues. The course is a 90 minute long a OTA approved course, and you can catch the live event on january 22 that's in 2025 or catch the replay of it inside the OT school house collaborative members will have ongoing access to the replay so you can learn more about Angela's course and the OT school house collaborative at ot schoolhouse.com/courses with that get ready to challenge your views on traditional therapy settings and discover how taking your Students outdoor might just create a profound impact on their sensory and developmental health. Let's dive into it.
Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast, your source for school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and professional development. Now to get the conversation started, here is your host, Jayson Davies class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Angela, welcome to the OT school health podcast. It is so great to have you here. Thanks for joining us.
Angela Hanscom
Yeah. Thank you for having me.
Jayson Davies
Asolutely. You know, we actually met a long time ago at, I believe it was the Occupational Therapy Association of California conference or symposium, something like that. Had no idea. You know, several years later, we'd be on a call together talking about timber Nook and nature based services. It's it's going to be fun. I am happy to have you here and share everything that you're doing with the school based ot community.
Angela Hanscom
Yeah, I'm very excited. And I think this will be really relevant information.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. You know, the last few days at the gym, in the morning, I've been listening to the book I love, Spotify, and now they've added audio books. I It's in my morning. So I actually want to start off with something that came to mind as I was listening, and actually something that you provided some imagery to right on the or right at the get go of your book. And I think it's something that many of us have experienced right you talk about a child, I believe it was around a six year old who may or may not have ADHD, but this child is being sent home every day with a yellow happy face sticker, and his friends are getting green happy face stickers, and that's causing some potential self esteem difficulties with the student, and to be honest, probably the parent as well, Because as as parents, we know how like much we internalize everything that our child does, gets, and all that fun stuff, and so I guess I just kind of want to start off with is, when did you begin to see this, and how has this shaped what timber nook has become?
Angela Hanscom
Yeah, oh my gosh. It started about 14 years ago, when I my children were really young, so one of my daughters is now in college, but when she just turned five is kind of when I was paying attention to children around me. I was working in a clinic setting at the time, and I just remember seeing really interesting sensory issues, like at a little boy that came into the clinic setting that didn't. Like wind in his face. And I remember thinking, How do I treat that indoors? Like do I get a fan and blow the fan on the child? You know, a lot of kids not wanting to get dirty, but the number one issue is kids are I was hearing from teachers that kids are starting to fall out chairs and onto the ground, starting to run into each other more frequently. And so, you know, just paying attention to those issues. And so it kind of led me down a rabbit hole of, you know, paying attention to the kids around me and some of the issues that were being reported.
Jayson Davies
Wow, yeah. And so you began, so what led you down the road, I guess, to start seeing students outside as opposed to inside? Were you originally working in, like, a clinic setting, or what made you decide I'm going to go outside?
Angela Hanscom
Yeah. So basically, actually, when I had my second daughter, so I have three children, I have two teenage girls, and then I have a son who's eight. And when I had my second daughter, I actually decided I was going to stay home from work. And I ironically, never wanted to be a manager of anything, and I had no business experience. I just wanted to be a traditional occupational therapist, go home and, you know, be a stay at home mom for many years, and then maybe go back and work in a clinic setting. So this was never my plan. But what happened is, when my I stayed home with my kids, I ended up joining a mom's group, because that was kind of the thing to do at the time, and to meet other like, you know, like minded moms and I had people ask me interesting questions. Like, some, you know, people knew I was an occupational therapist. And one, one mom asked me, Why does my daughter spin in circles all the time? Like, what is happening? And then another one asked me, you know, my child's in preschool and he's having trouble paying attention. You know, what do I do? And so again, just really reflecting on, like, why are we asking kids, you know, age four, to sit down and pay attention? Like, isn't, isn't learning through play. So just really paying attention to that. And then, um, when I was staying home, I just around that time noticed there was not a lot of kids playing outside. We have 12 acres of woodland here and about 50 acres of conservation surrounding our property. So we're we live in the boonies on our site, but sometimes I take a shortcut through a neighborhood, and I just remember thinking like there's children that grew up the same age as my kids there, but I never saw them outdoors. And I kept thinking, why are they not outside? I grew up in Vermont where, you know, we were outside till the lights went off, type thing. So, you know, just starting to pay attention to what was happening around me. And then I had a friend I knew I wanted to do something outdoors, and so I was going to run nature classes until I did my first one. And I had a parent come up to me with our son in hand, and she said, can you tell me why the leaves change color? And I was like, ah, it has something to do with a pigment and the leaf like, you know, trying to remember from my science classes, from high school here I am an Occupational Therapist. And I was like, it really helped me reflect on what is my background here. I'm not a teacher and I'm not an environmentalist or a naturalist. And I kept thinking, you know, back then, the professionals running nature programming was most likely, you know, naturalists and teachers. And so I kept thinking, what does an occupational therapist have anything to do with nature programming? And when I learned over the years is that, you know, the main, as we all know, the main occupation of a child is play, and outdoor play is a particularly meaningful occupation that is really at risk in ways that we never anticipated, and that's really affecting child development. And so really what I learned over the years, and you know, there's another whole story to this. But you know, as I was running this nature programming, that really became started as a form of summer camps, actually, because I had a friend that said, I think adults are more likely to drop their children off, so why don't you start with summer camps? Oh, there you go. So that's how timber Nick started, but really over the years, observing children in play out in the woods. You know, that's what I realized, that the whole mission behind Tim Roy is to restore the occupation of outdoor play and make it as authentic as possible, and that, and that's why it's so therapeutic.
Jayson Davies
I love that. Yeah. I mean, again, I haven't made it through all of your book, but I know you really start by looking at some of the research that you talked about chiropractors, and you talked about other types of MDS and other people within related services, and you're seeing a lot of different outcomes because of lack of outdoor play, potentially. And I'd love to kind of give you a moment, I guess, just just to share some of those things that you're talking about, you know what? How is the lack of outdoor play impacting our children?
Angela Hanscom
Yeah, absolutely. Well, so just to dive a little deeper about this, you know, some of the major issues that we're seeing is chiropractors and physical therapists were saying that they're seeing this pre adolescent posture. An earlier age. So they're at this upper body curvature and this forward head position and an earlier age, and they're having to treat back pain earlier. And you know, this makes a lot of sense to me, because when we did a pilot study and looked at core strength of children from, you know, nowadays, compared to 1984 which was my generation growing up, we found and looked at just having a normal balance reaction. We found only one out of every 12 children could meet standards from like 3040, years ago. And so that was really alarming. So it led to a lot of research, and going down the road of asking veteran teachers had been around for at least 3040, years. Were they seeing a rise in sensory and motor issues in children? And so what teachers are reporting? Because they've, they've a lot of these veteran teachers have seen a change over the years. As one is, like I said, the posture is changing. Another thing is decreased attention. So, and this is everywhere, no matter where I'm speaking, they're reporting a decreased in focus in the classroom. So, for example, we had a teacher say she was able to teach a whole classroom as a whole, and she said, maybe, you know, one or two kids had trouble paying attention back then. She said, now, on a good day, at least eight of those 26 kids are really struggling to pay attention. And she actually did change the way she taught so like breaking them up into small groups to engage them in a task. And you know, these are just a couple of quick things, but emotional regulation is another huge one that teachers reporting there. You know, kids are crying at the drop of a hat, much more easily frustrated than years past. A lot of kids are fidgeting. And then the other thing is, kids are falling out of the chair onto the ground. So there's a slew of issues that we're seeing.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. And you even start to address this in the book, you know, it's not something that can be addressed in one book, but there, of course, is some societal changes, right? That that might be at play here, different expectations for children. But one of the things you really brought up, that you know is a never ending conversation, is the idea of updating versus changing norms. And you know, a lot of people are asking for our everyday tools, whether it be the SFA that hasn't been updated since, like, 2000 or before, and the bot three that just got updated Right? Like, are we changing the goal post? Are we even changing the starting line by updating these norms? Should we be comparing students to 1984 norms, or should we be comparing them to 2023 norms? And, yeah, I don't know if you want to provide any thoughts on that, or which way you lean, I'm sure it's probably somewhere in the middle, is my guess. But go for it.
Angela Hanscom
Yeah, no, I actually, I think at the conference I was at with you back in when, and I was the book wasn't published yet, I don't think, or.
Jayson Davies
I think you were like on almost, like a launching tour, like it was just, I think you had a few copies available, maybe.
Angela Hanscom
Yeah, it was almost longer. But I remember someone coming up to me and saying, Do you know that they're thinking of changing the standardized norms for one of our OT assessments, and that was the first I heard about it, when I was at that conference. Is, you know, like they are actually wrestling with the dilemma of changing it and and they actually have gone and changed it. I always feel like we should keep them to the same standards. But, yeah, the problem was that everyone was presenting with issues, you know, like, let's say grip strength. All the kids are a good majority of kids are presenting with trouble with the grip strength when compared to, you know, 3040, years ago. So what do you do with that? Yeah, yeah. My personal opinion is we shouldn't make it easier for them. We really should take a hard look at our environment. What is going on if a good majority of children are struggling with basic sensory skills?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and, I mean, again, you know, even your book, right, 2016 to some degree, is already, quote, unquote, outdated, right? Like, we've had a pandemic since then, we've had, like, iPhones and iPads and computers are even more popular. Just got everything that kids are using these days. So, yeah, so interesting how that works while you're while you're talking. I just had an idea, and if anyone from WPS or Pearson is listening, I think it would be really cool, even actually, if, like, when you complete the bot three, not only did it give you the current norms, but maybe it gave you the norms from 1984 too, and you could almost see, like, the where this child placed on today's norms versus older norms. That'd be really interesting. Definitely possible in today's technology age.
Angela Hanscom
Yeah. It'd be fascinating.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. All right, let's start talking a little bit about what the actual treatment itself looks like. When I think of timber Nook and nature based services, to some degree, I see parallels with sensory integration per se, a lot of like clinic based si so I want to just let you kind of have the floor to discuss, maybe the similarities differences and how it goes. Beyond si or or not beyond Si, I don't know, but I want to give you that, that opportunity to share, you know, what it looks like compared to SI, I guess, or other services.
Angela Hanscom
Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, the more again, I observe children in, you know, clinic settings and in the school environment and then out in the woods and out nature, the more I realize that nature really is the ultimate sensory experience. And the first thing to keep in mind is, when you step outdoors, you know multiple senses are being ignited. So like you have the wind, you have temperature changes, you have depth perception, you have bird sounds, you have uneven ground. Like inside, you don't really have to think about it. It's not challenging you as much. True, you know, there's you can't see as far. The noise levels are different. But yeah, when you step outdoors, multiple synapses are firing in in the brain, and so your chance for sensory integration or organization of the brain is going to be stronger when you step outdoors. And then, if you look in our OT books, right, the ideal state for sensory integration is to be in a calm but alert state of mind. And you know, you look at the colors outside, and you'll see blues and greens and browns, and we'll paint our preschools those colors you go for a massage and you hear crashing waves and nature sounds. There's a reason why doctors say bring your babies outside. It's calming, but you're alert, right? Because you have to pay attention the grounds uneven an animal might run by. You're navigating your environment, and so that happens to be ideal for that sensory integration for children. So we want to think about what percentage of time are children in an environment conducive to that integration. And then what percentage of time are they environment that could be disruptive or dysregulating? You know, in some of our classrooms, even looking at how we have posters on, you know, a lot of posters on the walls could be dysregulating. Even just being closer to other children can be disorganizing as well. Noise levels change when you step indoors. And you know, the other thing is transition. So, you know, in a lot of times in the school environment, we're constantly shifting children. We're like, switch, okay, we're going to switch every 45 minutes to an hour. We're shifting the child. And a lot of kids with sensory issues have a hard time with transitions, and so it can be very dysregulating. Whereas, where you go out in the woods, you go out in nature, often you have a lot of time. You know, one thing that Tim Burke is known for is time and the space out there, so like, hours of outdoor play time, so they can dive really deep into play and to regulate and to just be, you know, that's another thing that we're we don't often give children enough time to create change to the development and then, yeah, so time and space are very big, but those, those are the things to keep in mind for the sensory integration piece.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. I mean, you, you kind of set it straight from the SI. I'm blanking on the terminology, but the document that says whether or not you're using SI, and that is that you need a calm yet alert safe space inside, and oh, it doesn't say inside. But would you say that you are providing sensory integration? Is that how you would kind of say just an alternative, non typical environment, or would you say it is very or somewhat different from SI?
Angela Hanscom
Well, I think, I think SI is very much a part of it. It's just to me, like another example, because I'm such an example person. Yeah, you know, sometimes we'll bring a little box of sand inside and call that sensory and then, like I often compare that when I do presentations to giant like the kids searching for frogs and giant mud puddles out at Tim Burnham, let's give that as an example. And I say, okay, both are considered a sensory experience. However, for our true objective is to create change to the senses. Which one do you think will be more conducive to that. And then I have people step back and say, what is happening in the image where children are in these giant mud puddles searching for frogs, and what you know that you're not getting with a little box of sand searching for, let's say, plastic frogs. And you know, they start breaking it down like, first of all, it's a whole body sensory experience, right? Is head to toe engagement. You're probably, is probably uneven under there. So you're, you're having to balance. There's different smells, right? You're, you have nature sounds. There's other children involved. So now you have more space for other children. You're having that communication piece and that engagement and connection with other children. You know, there's endless opportunities for play. So a stick could be 50 different play affordances, and someone else might use that stick in a different way, and it helps you get new play ideas. So there's endless opportunity for sensory integration and for, you know, other skills that we often kind of break down as a. Occupational Therapist, right? Like executive functioning skills, social emotional skills, all that good stuff.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, is there any aspect within occupational therapy that maybe you used to be able to provide in a clinic, but you found it difficult to provide outdoors? Or has it been pretty simple to adapt everything?
Angela Hanscom
So, well, the way that timber Nick works is it's a pro it's a program based intervention. So it's not a one on one or small group intervention. It's an entire group of children. So it's very much like program based and so it would be if I only had one or two kids out there, then it does change the game, because part of having many children of mixed ages and mixed abilities is that it helps create that community, which helps form the individual child. So some of those children might have more advanced language skills that will model that for that child, or more advanced play skills, and it will take that child to a different level, and it will be more effective because it's actually within the context of play, the mean of meaningful occupation of play. And so that's going to be really effective. The other big change is that the adults actually take a step back. So it's very much where the adults have to get out of the way to foster the environment. So we use the environment and we stage it and put items out there to inspire higher level play, but the adults. So that's very different than like an individual or small group model, where the adult is kind of front and center. And I can explain why we do that, if you want, but that's that's a big difference.
Jayson Davies
I think we're here. We might as well just, just roll with it. Go for it. I've got many questions for you, but I want to let you talk about the program.
Angela Hanscom
Yeah. So a great example of this, or why we step back in the first place, is, let's say kids are building a four out in the woods, right? There's so many developmental benefits to building for in general, but we noticed that if an adult is standing too close to the kids, the kids started seeking constant adult reassurance, like, Is this okay? Or can you do this for me? Or there would be more tattling going on. But there was a constant seeking for help from the adult but when we backed up 1020, feet and we got down low and reduce adult presence out there. What we found is that the kids would turn to each other to come up with their own play ideas and then execute those play schemes, solve their own problems through play conflict resolution, regulate their emotions, you know, and just but and execute those play schemes. So like one thing that we tend to do in society in general is we're giving the kids all the ideas, and kids are alert like they don't get a lot of opportunities to initiate their own ideas anymore and to execute those ideas. So at Timber neck, that is one huge benefit, is that they get to plac practice those play schemes, those executive functioning skills and a very real context that can help generalize over to other play scenarios, if that makes sense.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So since you do it as a group, I don't know if you do it every time, but do you take, you know, pre test, post test, or have you done research where you've done pre test, post test and and I don't necessarily need to you to go into like, all the outcomes or whatever, but I'm just interested in, like, what interested in, like, what are you measuring when you do that, whether it's subjective data, whether it is a standardized assessment, what? What is kind of your outcomes that you're looking for?
Angela Hanscom
Yeah. So we we have an observational tool that we can use if providers, those that are running timber, not prefer if they want to or if a school has implemented timber nook, they can look at different measurements as well. So there's a couple different ones. One is an observational tool that we created with the University of New Hampshire, and it looks at the effectiveness of a play experience and how rich it is. And so it's has the person running timber to kind of assess the effectiveness of it. How what is engagement like for the children? How many kids engage in that play experience? You know? How many times did they need adult intervention, like or seek out an adult and so you can kind of measure the change over time. Looks at social, emotional skills and in play skills. So that's one measurement. And then a lot of times, if it's in this school setting, like so Tim Burnett can go into a school and be part of their curriculum. They will often do some sort of reflection after so they might do like a literature prompt when they get back in the school to evaluate, you know, like what children are getting out of it? We do a very quick evaluation. At the end, we'll say what's one thing that challenged you today to the children? And you know what's also like evaluating how much they enjoyed pleasure and engagement as well? But it's, yeah, it's a little different than traditional. Oh, OT, more program based, yeah.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, absolutely. I, I think it's really cool. And I know you're, you're diving even more into the school realm. Here in the future, I live in a place where, you know, we actually have a state park right behind us, but a lot of times going outdoors. You know, you mentioned a mom's group. And my friend runs a mom's group, and like, to be honest, sometimes they just, they go to like a local mall, and they're doing, like a work at a local mall, like, that's part of the work. That's part of the Southern California moms group working out together. But obviously you have a much larger space in your backyard. But this is spread. And so what are some of the ways that people who are maybe more in a suburban, maybe even, dare I say, urban area, like, are they able to kind of adapt this? And do you have any examples of what that kind of looks like?
Angela Hanscom
Yeah, that's a really good, a good question. So we, I live in a suburban area as well, and we do have timber nooks that are, you know, we still find a patch of woods to do timber neck in. We do have timber neck in some cities. So like Calgary, Canada is a city that they're bringing timber nook in. So there's parks Los Angeles timber and Los Angeles, same thing. They're bringing it into the park. It is more work on the people that are running the program, because they have to bring all their supplies in and out. Timber neck is it's ideal if you have an outdoor classroom where you can leave things out there. It does make it more simple. However, there are people that are like, this is so important, you know, I think there's room to grow for this. I think there's, there's gotta be a way to be able to, like, find transportation for kids that are disadvantaged to be able to access the woods to, you know, get timber neck. Because what we're finding is a lot of kids are play deprived, and we, we've been doing a lot of field trips here, and people, we have kids bussing from an hour that are in the inner city coming out for timber knock. And you can tell they're like, so like, the sense of urgency that they have to get to play really quick is very fascinating to me, because the typical programming that we run almost like a forest program, the kids are very relaxed. They know they have hours out there where a field trip is different. They get a taste of timber Nick and they're like.
Jayson Davies
Just the first day, yeah, okay. Now, when I think of a kindergarten or any schoolyard for that, you know, being obviously, you think of a large grass area for some soccer or whatnot. You think of a blacktop for basketball and tetherball and those fun things. And you think of a playground, right, albeit minus swings, largely due to our favorite people in the world, lawyers. So it sounds like when you're integrating or when you're providing timber nook as a program for schools, it doesn't sound like it's being done on the schoolyard. It sounds like it's being outside of the school, correct?
Angela Hanscom
Yeah. So timber means trees, so typically it's within a forest or woods. In a lot of our schools that run timber neck have woods to be able to run it. We have had some locations do it in the past. Actually, we do have one in New Jersey that's a school that has a very pretty small area, a couple trees, and they still run timber Nick and they make it work, and they see benefits. So there is a possibility of doing it now on a playground. It's very hard, because what happens is, with Tim Burke, you want to get away from playgrounds, because you don't want to get playground play where they all stand in line and they're they're using equipment. You really want them to create societies, create their own worlds out there, dive into a magic Terry type play, and that you kind of have to get away from the man made stuff, and so it is harder to do that nearer play structure.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. Okay, so then you talked about, like, how it can be a field trip. You talked a little bit more how maybe one of the private side of things outside of the schools, right? Kids are maybe coming once a week or several times a week for schools. Is it primarily, then that field trip type of thing. And is it a one off, or is it a multiple thing? Or what does that look like?
Angela Hanscom
Yeah. So multiple things, actually. So some schools will just do field trips at a local timber neck site. Some will do a series of field trips. We do have a provider that is running timber nook at a school right now and so And what's cool about this is, she's a dental hygienist. She's not an occupational therapist, but she's trained in this authentic occupation, and she's mastering it, so she's bringing it in. And what's happening is she's she's doing it at the woods. There's woods at that school right now. They have two other schools bussing the kids to that one. So there she's running tomorrow, four days a week for that district, and then she just recently got another school interested. So there's a huge need for this kind of program right now because of, I'm sure, you know, like, some of the behavioral issues we're seeing, and a lot of you know, just connection and social skills. Kids and all the things that you can't really, you can't really replicate this in a clinic setting, or one on one, or, you know, they treat that true neighborhood play, which they're not getting. If you send your kids outdoors, they're not getting that rich type of play anymore.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah, wow. And, you know, you mentioned the frogs, and I know in the book, you talk about, you talk about, you know, actually going out and looking for real frogs. And you also mentioned a kid who's on like a rope swing and falls and, you know, gets the wind knocked out of him for probably the first time in his life, and having to learn about that experience and whatnot. What are some other really quickly, because I do want to dive into what it looks like in the school, but just really quickly, like, what are some of your favorite activities and moments that you get to share with the children out in the program. What are some of those? You know, rope swinging and fun things that you like to do with the kids?
Angela Hanscom
Yeah, so Tim Reddick, we call it. They're called play experiences and and the reason why is because I'll give you a couple examples of them, is because environment is staged to inspire that kind of play. So an example might be three little pigs. So that's a favorite of mine, where we might do a puppet show of the three little pigs, or we'll read the story and then after out there, before the kids even come out, like it's the we have bales of hay out there. We'll have real sticks, well, big bricks of different sizes, Wolf masks might have some milk crates and pulleys and rope. And then we'll say, now you have the opportunity to create your own three little pig homes. And so they have the opportunity for hours, to build life size three little pig homes. And they may or may not do that, or they may do it for a period of time, and it might go to a different kind of play experience, but the whole objective is to inspire a higher level of play. And because you have children of mixed ages, it's true neighborhood play, right? So you'll have some older kids that will take play to another level for the little kids and help them tie knots and stuff, where, whereas you might need an adult if they're all five, right? So, so that's a beautiful thing. Another, like popular one or one that I enjoyed doing, actually, Merrill shoe company, their design team came out and did this as adults. Did this verdict, experience is a giant ball run, and so using, like, real gutters and big tubing and ropes and pulleys, duct tape, and then they create their own ball run out there. And so what's cool about that is, you see different leaders come forward, and children like often when schools come out, you'll, you'll hear teachers say, I never knew that kid was a leader until I saw them in this kind of environment. And then you, you know, they do so much like fine motor coordination, you know, design work, but there's a lot. It's like OT and steroids. It's very and it's all in the context of play, which is, you know, why I think it's so effective. The kids are really deep into it.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. Two things keep coming to mind as we talk, you know, one is, like the dystopian world of Lord of the Flies. Obviously, we're not going dystopian here, but like all the kids just kind of having to learn. And, you know, leadership. Some some kids step up to leadership roles. Others turn into followers. And then that changes over time. And I love that idea of, you know, older kids with younger kids. A lot of times in the school based setting, we try to group, you know, similar age and similar ability level, potentially, but maybe that's completely wrong. Maybe we should try and mix that up a little bit. The other thing that came to my mind, as you were talking about, you know, that like the marble run or ball run, and having just random objects like gutters and pipes and tubing and stuff is a research idea from, I want to say, was the early 2000s I think, where, don't quote me, it might be Anita Bundy, but they just put out random things on the playground and actually trained the aides to step back, and they found that that had a positive effect and timber not, kind of reminds me a little bit about that.
Angela Hanscom
Yeah. So Anita Bundy was one of our keynote speakers for our turmeric conference a few years back, and she did the Sydney playground project. And a lot of times she talked about how loose parts so these materials, like milk crates, that could be used for many play ideas that it was actually like gives a lot of times children with special needs and invitation to play with other children too. They have something to offer. So anyway, yeah.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, it's not just the physical advantages to using these random objects, right? It's the social emotional it's the societal and general advantages to using these things. So love that you're actually conducting some research in collaboration with the University of New Hampshire right now, and I believe this aims to understand the cultural impacts of timber nooks. So I would love to just learn a little bit about that. What are the key areas you're hoping to explore, and, yeah, what you're hoping for?
Angela Hanscom
Yeah, absolutely. So we actually met with them this morning again, but we are basically looking. At our current timber neck schools, so schools that are doing timber as part of their school day. And let me explain that real brief, just so people understand. But they might have a two hour time block of timber nook within the day. So it could be that they go to school and then they from like 930 to 1130 they have timber knock before lunch, and they might have it every day. They might have it once a week. They might have it twice a week.
Jayson Davies
Hold up, sorry, I have to interrupt you, because I know everyone is asking me, how is this like? How is this even possible? How do like schools allow this?
Angela Hanscom
Yeah, oh, so Well, they do research. You know, let me give you an example. So, Laconia Christian Academy is an example school that we have not far from us. We have a number of schools in our area, but that's one example. And they they started researching for schools in the area, knowing that outdoor education was really important. And they ended up at Timber nook, because we get, we offer, like ongoing professional development on training. It's, you know, it's a lot of times you get trained in this for school approach, and you're on your own. This is very different. But they, what they did was they started with timber neck once a week. They got rid of their phys ed for pre K, okay, that scary because, because it's very physical, yeah, this is their phys ed, basically. But they so they got rid of phys ed. And then what happened is, after doing it once a week for two hours, they looked at their recess, which is half an hour a week, and increase the Rhesus to an hour every day because of what they were seeing at Timber nook. And then they went to twice a week timber nook, so now they have like, five hours of timber knock and an hour of recess every day, and they have been looking at the data. This is a very academic school, and so no change of anything, an increase, and this was during the pandemic when they were looking at it. But not only that, they're seeing that the kids are happier, they're healthier, they're more resilient, they're able to solve their own conflicts. They're more creative, and the teachers are happier, so they're finding more joy in their work again, when you're getting a lot of teacher turnover. So this is what we're researching. So this, I figured, okay, really inspired us to like we need to look at, you know, how Tim vernick is affecting culture. Because they said, you know, Tim Bernick is our part of our culture. Now it is our culture, and it's, yeah, so.
Jayson Davies
Wow. So they started small, and they found that internally, you know, maybe they looked at various scores and they said, Hey, this is supporting our children. So they went with two hours a day that that is amazing. I like how they did the physical education. They kind of, well, we don't need phys ed because kids are outside for two hours, so they've replaced that. But now I'm sure they're embedding other academics into that time to some degree. Maybe it's Wow, yeah, it's just that's pretty crazy. So when you're talking about understanding the culture, elaborate that on that a little bit more like changing the culture within the school, changing the cultural in general, and increasing play. What is that?
Angela Hanscom
Yeah, so we're going to look at, you know, what effects Tim Murdoch has had on the school. So we're going to look at, like, the teacher satisfaction, you know, teacher retention. We're hoping this is not like, I don't, don't quote me on all of this. I'm not sure we have to keep on the actual research aims, but these are some of the things we're playing around with, you know, the health, the the well being, and the health of the children, and then, yeah, like, how is it affected? You know, recess. Like, have they increased recess? You know, has it? Is there a carry over to their teaching techniques, which is what we're hearing. We're hearing they now teach differently. You know, they're able to allow for more child independence in the classroom because they can let go of controlling everything in the aspect, so.
Jayson Davies
That's awesome. All right. Well, I guess we'll kind of start to wrap up here with with just a few things that maybe ot practitioners who are listening to this podcast, who, you know, are school based ot practitioners, primarily, maybe some clinic based, but you know, they're interested in this and the idea of a playing more and B playing outside. Let's assume that they're more in a quote, unquote, typical suburb in school, right? And they don't have woodsy area outside that they can use. What would you and kind of just start to encourage them to potentially do, to maybe start to either A, get more play time because they need more play time, or B, kind of incorporate the ideas of timber nook without having a wooded area.
Angela Hanscom
Yeah. So I, you know, the book balance and barefoot, I think does a nice job for like, if you're, you are limited, or you have you're going to start with your back at yard, or are you going to start, you know, at recess. So, you know, that is if people want more information, that I would definitely turn to that book to read more. But, you know, obviously, timber knock is a specific program, and they can. Research more on that, and it is credentialed with iota. So any OTs that train, they get ongoing certification. If they have woods, I would definitely recommend looking into it, because there's a lot of training and support and education that needs to be done and advocacy. And it's big thing. It's not easy work. But if they just have, like, a playground, or if they, you know, like just, maybe even just looking at the environment, like, can you have an area that is away from equipment that is accessing some sort of nature? Can you put out loose parts, like materials that be, can be used for many purposes. So, like, some examples of loose parts are, you know, planks, tires, baskets, you know, building, building materials, stuff. They can build forts with little, little pieces of rope, bricks. And that, that alone is going to take some education, just introducing those parts to the school, but that, you know, that is a way to kind of change the game and then allowing for more time. So, you know, 30 minute, 20 minute recess sessions are not enough. And you know, kids are just figuring out, who am I going to play with, what am I going to play and then the bell rings often so they don't ever get into those advanced play schemes, which really works on development. And so I would advocate for, you know, at least an hour recess session. So those are things I would consider. And then, you know, advocating to parents to allow the kids to get outdoor playtime at home, advocacy is huge, because it will create change the child and going on a screen when they get home or being overly scheduled is, is is really sad and they're not getting that social piece they need. Yeah, so.
Jayson Davies
That's awesome, yeah. And the other piece that I would love to hear from you really quickly, because it kind of incorporates you brought it up earlier, right? Is, is in your place, right? It's the clinicians or the owners or the people that are working right, taking a step back in the schools. That's often a para professional, sometimes teachers, how can ot practitioners support them to maybe step back? Or have you seen school based ot practitioners or other people you know help to train those people as a way to how to how to best support the students during recess? I guess.
Angela Hanscom
Yeah, that's it. That is a challenging one. It's funny, because I was just talking to someone recently, and they said I was I'm training them to be a provider. And she said that she at recess because they also work in the school, and they're also going to be doing timber duck. Then she got yelled at because she stood back. So there, I think that this is a bigger thing, that there needs to be a lot of education done. And so the helpful thing is, when Tim roux gets into a school, it's education for everyone. So everyone's on the same page, versus you're fighting one person with, I'm going to bring in these loose part and people don't understand. They're like, What are you talking about? Loose parts and rhesus alone, like, the way they have it set up, there's the number of children they have out in the small space. Like it can affect dynamics. So I think looking at the environment, you know, and advocating for less, is more less children out there at a time. But yeah, it is. It is a little harder with public schools as well. Like even this, the school that Tim Rick's going into, the public schools, they have a wood separate from recess, and the teachers, what's happening is the teachers are sitting, watching recess and then watching timber knock and saying, How can we see behavioral issues at recess? But not timber, not but it's but the nice thing is, is planting seeds going okay, well, what about this environment is different, and what can we do different about recess? So I to be completely honest, I think the best way to create change is to be an example, and for them to see it, these teachers have to witness it sometimes, because you can talk to them, you know, until you show.
Jayson Davies
Them, you can't just tell them. You got to show them, right? Yeah, so quick, quick question. We don't need to go too in depth into this one. But would you rather see two half hour recesses over the course of the day, or one longer recess? If they had to?
Angela Hanscom
One longer recess?
Jayson Davies
Okay.
Angela Hanscom
definitely.
Jayson Davies
I mean, ideally, right? We're getting two one hour recesses, but just one longer recess. You think it was more beneficial?
Angela Hanscom
Yes, because the reason why is it takes, like it, like I said, it takes a lot of time. It takes sometimes 45 minutes to dive into a play scheme for kids. And so when you cut it short, they don't get to those social emotional opportunities where they do have to regulate emotions and solve their own problems. It you just never get to that point. The other thing is, it takes a good 45 minutes to an hour to regulate the body to be able to pay attention and learn. And so sometimes you let them in in 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and they've gone from here to here. And so then you're having like, dim lights and like refocus them to pay attention after, so.
Jayson Davies
Wow, you just blew my mind, because, like, that reminds me of something completely unrelated. It. But I use, I don't even know what the name of the app is, but I use an app to wake me up. And it doesn't just wake me up at the time I want to wake up. It measures my sleep using my Apple watch, and it says, oh, during this half hour time, when are you, quote, unquote, least asleep? That's when we want to wake you up, because that's when you'll be best to wake up, right? You don't want to wake up from deep sleep. You want to wake up from light sleep, and kind of correlating what you just said, right? We we don't want to get the kids all riled up and then take them into the classroom. We want to get them riled up, calm back down, and then bring them into the classroom in 20 minutes. It's hard to do that.
Angela Hanscom
Absolutely. Yeah.
Jayson Davies
Wow. Dropping knowledge here. Oh, right. Angela, we'll wrap up with two last questions. This is a fun one, and then we'll let people know where they can learn more about you. But what would your ideal playground look like at a school? At a public school?
Angela Hanscom
It would be in the woods.
Jayson Davies
Okay, we gotta go a little more in depth, in that woods.
Angela Hanscom
and what so like my second best, if it couldn't be in the woods, would be like a natural playground. That was like replicating. We worked with be in stock natural playgrounds for a long time, and they came out to Tim road to see, like, we can't ever replicate what you're doing here, but we can do some things that, like on a scale of therapeutic, you know, that's a step forward. And it's like, you know, natural logs. It's, you know, there are some posts that are like trees. There's where they can dig really deep and start engaging the muscles and, you know, create change to the senses. On a bigger scale, that that would be ideal, less equipment that only has so many uses, and then having loose parts, like materials they can pick up and move around, would be really important.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. How much do you feel like having some sort of body of water, whether it be a stream, small pond, like I know in the school setting, right? We can't get kids like super wet and then send them back to classroom. But would that be ideal for you, or is it too difficult to use?
Angela Hanscom
Yeah, it's funny. We just had this conversation at the Research meeting. Is some of our our schools have outdoor showers. I which I just about, I didn't realize it outdoor shower. But, you know, having the ability to get dirty is actually, I feel like, really important, because it's just part of engaging the senses. One thing people can look up as a Swanson elementary school. It's a school in New Zealand that implemented change their recess. It is mentioned in the book, and one of the things that he implemented was loose parts. The adults step back and he and the freedom to get dirty. And he said, the first week, they did a mudslide every day of the week, and they said, but once they got out of their system, the kids, you know, it was not an issue, and they had a full hour recess session, and they were ready to learn. So they saw a decrease in bullying and an increase in attention just from those changes at recess.
Jayson Davies
Wow, wow. I think that is a great place to start to wrap up. And Angela, we've already mentioned the book, but where's the best place for people to learn more about timber neck?
Angela Hanscom
Yeah. So timberduc.com and then we're also on Facebook and Instagram. Fantastic.
Jayson Davies
Well, Angela, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing so much about timber duck and also about how timber Nook is being used currently in the schools, that's that's fantastic. I can't wait for more people to learn more about timber nook. I wouldn't be surprised if someone gets an idea and decides to go do something special with this information that you have shared today. So thank you. We really appreciate it, and we'll definitely have to keep in touch to learn more about your research as it becomes available.
Angela Hanscom
Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me.
Jayson Davies
Well, that wraps us up today. Please help me in thanking Angela Hanscom one more time. Angela, thank you so much for sharing invaluable insights about the timber nook program and the wonderful benefits of outdoor play. Your passion and dedication to children's sensory and developmental needs are truly inspirational that we can all learn from and also, thank you for tuning in today, I hope you feel inspired to champion the power of outdoor and nature based activities after this episode within your communities and beyond, don't forget you can learn more about nature based OT and the impact that decreased outdoor play has had on sensory issues within our Students at the OT schoolhouse collaborative. Become a member today at ot schoolhouse.com/collab, to join Angela's course live on january 22 and catch the replay after that. As a member, you'll also get access to all of our other courses, resources and so much more. Once again, thank you everyone for joining us today. Let's continue to foster these environments, these positive and nature based environments within our schools, to support our students, take care, and I'll catch you next time on the OT school house podcast. Adios.
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