My children are still too young to use a dictionary, except for the myriad of picture dictionaries they love to comb through, so I hadn’t paid much attention to news that the publisher of the Oxford Junior Dictionary is going to be exchanging “nature words” for “tech words”.

In: Blackberry, blog, MP3 player, voicemail, broadband

Out: acorn, blackberry (the fruit), clover, heron, ivy, magpie, otter, sycamore, willow

Seriously?!? I don’t know about you, but I would hope that kids would gain much more from keeping words that are from our natural world, instead of the tech-obsessed one that we have created. Aren’t kids losing access to nature fast enough? Do we really need to include MP3 players in the junior dictionary?

I found the information while searching for this book, Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. Today has been such a nice day, almost warm! I thought about how much my boys love to be outside. They are right now.. screaming laughing, running around and burning energy!

I personally have such a hard time getting outside when the weather is yucky, but they don’t seem to care. I am so glad that they have the opportunity to get to go outside so often. We have a nice safe backyard, plus we are walking distance to the woods and a couple of parks. So many kids don’t get this and they are really losing out.

How often do your kids get outside?  Do your kids know what an acorn, blackberry, clover, heron, ivy, magpie, otter, sycamore, willow are?