Growing up, we had a bin filled with clothes. On a warm summer day, when playing outside was our only care in the world, we would run to the bin, rummage around and grab the first pair of shorts and shirt we could find. With that, we were ready for the day. I say we because it wasn’t a stack of folded clothes in a dresser that belonged to one individual. It was a bin filled with various old soccer and t-ball shorts as well as shirts from the dentist and school that my siblings and I all grabbed from. You never knew what you were going to get. And it didn’t matter because all we were worried about was getting outside and playing.

Nowadays, I still sort of have play clothes. They are just referred to with very adult names like garden shirts or mowing pants, which sounds more like work clothes, doesn’t it? Maybe I should take back the name play clothes and reclaim a bit of my childhood. The funny thing is I feel like I’ve spent the last four months in either my jeans and polo for the nursery or my adult play clothes. I can’t tell you the last time I even glanced at my dress pants. But I’m not complaining. I know that someday I’m going to look back and wish that I could spend the majority of my non-work time in play clothes.

And I have a feeling many of us are going to continue to spend plenty of time in the same way as we go through the second half of 2020. Lots of education is going to be happening at home, so don’t forget that outside is a great place for learning. Ok, maybe you can’t participate in a Zoom meeting from the butterfly garden, but the amount of learning that can happen in the garden is truly amazing. If you need ideas for garden projects to do with the family, see our Teaching Thursday post. Just make sure everyone is wearing play clothes first.