Ep 68: Using "Livng" Books to Inspire Creative Treatment Planning for Nature-Based Therapy
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Therapy in the Great Outdoors, the podcast where we explore the business and practice of nature based pediatric therapy of all kinds. If you're an outdoor loving pediatric practitioner in the fields of occupational, physical, or speech therapy, social work, or mental health, this podcast will help you start and grow a successful nature based practice or program.
I am the ever honest, always a hundred percent real. You'll hear it all on this podcast. Dr. Laura Park Figueroa. I'm a pediatric OT with over 20 years of experience and I run a thriving nature based practice with profitable locations in two different states and multi six figures in revenue. I also host the free online community at therapyinthegreatoutdoors.
com to help you pursue your nature based therapy dreams too. Are you ready to take action on those dreams? Let's jump [00:01:00] in.
Hello, welcome to Episode 68 of Therapy in the Great Outdoors. Today we are going to talk about planning your nature based therapy sessions. with inspiration from living books. And if you have never heard what a living book is, we're going to get into that topic today. It is one of the things that I am most passionate about, and I came across this during COVID when I was homeschooling.
So I'll tell you that story, and then we will get into how we use in my practice, living books that inspire. Children to play in very creative ways and also that inspire your creative treatment planning. Because a lot of our skill as nature based therapist is setting up the session in such a way that the children can actually be free to engage in [00:02:00] play play while also working on their therapy goals, maybe when they don't even realize it.
So I'm going to give a brief history of Charlotte Mason education because Charlotte Mason is the educator from the late 19th century who developed this idea of living books. We'll talk about what living books are, how you can identify them, how we choose books in my practice, , based on the living book philosophy, and then a few other
additional things that I look for in alignment with the Contigo approach, which is the nature based therapy approach that I've developed. And I think that's it. I hope that this episode will give you a lot of inspiration to come up with endless ideas for things to do in nature based therapy sessions.
I will say we use this framework mostly for this idea of using a book to kind of inspire play. [00:03:00] We use this framework mostly for planning camp in my practice, but it absolutely is something that you could use just in any nature based session, which is why I've titled this this episode, planning your nature based therapy sessions using, using living books, not just camp.
So know that as we get into talking about this, that we do use it for camp, but you can use it in any nature based to, to help plan any nature based therapy session. Okay, so first of all, Charlotte Mason was a British educator who was super progressive for her time, and if you haven't heard of her, I think there's lots of rabbit holes you can go down on Instagram and on the internet to learn about Charlotte Mason, so I'll just give a very, very brief introduction to say that her philosophy of education is something that really, I think, aligns with the way many nature based pediatric [00:04:00] practitioners think in that she really didn't believe in Formal teaching of academics until a later age.
I think usually around seven was when she said formal schooling should start. And prior to that time, she really advocated for a lot of time outdoors, having children and their parents and their teachers spend a lot of time outdoors and learning from the natural world. So it's something that. Is near and dear to my heart.
And I'm sure to yours, if you are listening to this podcast. So that's one of the elements of Charlotte Mason educational philosophy. I should state as well that if you look into, , learning more about Charlotte Mason education, she was a Christian educator, however, there are many modern day secular groups that follow Charlotte Mason philosophy in their homeschooling and in their school, like an educational model at an actual school where teachers are there, not, not [00:05:00] homeschooling.
There are many, many secular, , people who follow her philosophies as well. So I think if you look into it and you're not a Christian, do not write off what she says, because much of it is just so wonderful. , in thinking about how we educate children. I wish that these ideas were more mainstream nowadays, but, They're, they're mainstream, maybe more in Europe.
I don't know if there might be more Charlotte Mason inspired schools in Europe, but, , she wrote a ton of books. She has, I think it's a series of six books. I've not read them all about education. , primarily right now, I believe that Charlotte Mason, Philosophy is mostly used by homeschoolers. , as I said, it hasn't really caught on as much in the, in the, , public school systems for sure.
I think all of us can agree that at least in America, our public school systems are pretty broken in many ways, but that may be a topic for another episode. So one of the things [00:06:00] that besides the lots of nature time, And nature study. She, she did advocate for studying nature, even as children get older. , one of the things that is central to Charlotte Mason education is the idea of narration.
And narration is the telling back of something that you read in simple terms. There's a lot more to it than that, but narration is telling back what you read or what you heard if you are a younger child who maybe can't even read yet. And I think this idea sat so well with me when I learned about it because I have noticed in my own work that if I learn something and then I tell it back, so much of what I do on this podcast and what I do in the teaching that I do in the free education that I do online and in my paid programs that I offer for nature based therapists.
Much of when I teach, it's also benefiting me [00:07:00] because it is, it is helping me to really internalize the learning that I have, right? And really make it my own because when your brain has to think through a concept, when you have to think through what you actually learned and communicate it to someone else, the learning is deeper inside of you.
Your mind, it just becomes more solidified inside of you. So this idea of narration requires that children have quality books from which to narrate, from which to tell back. Because if we are assuming that children are learning through this process of telling back in Charlotte Mason education, then we really want to make sure that the books that the children are using.
in order to tell us what they learned are quality books. And Charlotte Mason called these books, living books. They have [00:08:00] rich ideas that are alive and, and really, , add something to our understanding of the truths that exist in human experience and in life. So I want to talk a little bit now about What living books are, how did Charlotte Mason define living books?
And I'm going to give you a few additions that I use to choose really good living books. , in addition to what, what Charlotte Mason would have said was a living book. And then I'll talk a little bit about how we use living books to plan out our camp Now, if you didn't listen to last week's episode, episode 67, I shared a framework for how we, , plan camp in my practice.
And this is kind of part two to that.
You guys, I had to stop, hit pause in my recording and plug in my computer. And then when I went to record [00:09:00] again, I recorded for, I don't know, the whole episode. I was done. I was happy I hit end and then it wasn't recording. So this is take two and y'all are gonna get an even better episode because I've practiced once,
All righty. So let's dive in. Now I'm gonna get back in the flow. I'm gonna pull up my outline here and let's dive into talking about what living books are so. When Charlotte Mason defined a living book, like I previously said, they have rich ideas and stories and characters. They are not just dry facts, okay?
So this is a concept that I got from an episode of the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast, which is an excellent resource if you want to learn about Charlotte Mason education. I love Sonia Shafer, the woman who runs the company. I met her at a conference once And [00:10:00] she has an episode called something like, what is a living book?
So I will link that in the show notes for this episode. So you can listen to that as well. But basically this idea of dry facts. are how, kind of, if you think about a history book, how they're generally written. They're boring. It's like, in 1692 this happened, and then this happened, and then this person did this.
And it doesn't tell you the stories or the character of the people throughout history, right? So, I am reading right now a book by Richard Rohr, and it actually has nothing to do with Charlotte Mason education. It is not a Rohr book. That is about living books or anything like that. It is a book about spirituality.
He's a Franciscan scholar and teacher. It's called falling upwards. I highly recommend it. It's a very good book. I'm only like in the introduction and already underlining so much and just like swimming in the loveliness of the, [00:11:00] the truth that is in this book. So that being said, in his book, he talks about stories and myths and how A story or a myth has meaning in our lives.
So I want to read you a quote from this Richard Rohr book because it relates to what a living book is. And it actually is a good description, um,, that in words that I, much better words than I can even describe to you of what I'm trying to get at by this idea of a living book in a story that is timeless.
So Richard Rohrer writes, myths are true basically because they work. A sacred myth keeps a people healthy, happy, and whole, even inside their pain. They give deep meaning and pull us into deep time. which encompasses all time, past and future, geological and cosmological, not just our little time [00:12:00] or culture.
Such stories are the very food of the soul, and they are what we are trying to get back to when we start fairy tales with phrases like once upon a time or long ago in a faraway land. And then later on he writes, Somehow, deep time orients the psyche, gives ultimate perspective, realigns us, grounds us, and thus heals us.
We belong to a mystery far grander than our little selves and our little time. Great storytellers and spiritual teachers. Always know this. And I made a little comment out to the side, CM living books, because this is such a great description, even though he's not necessarily talking about a living book.
He is talking about stories that are timeless, that help us understand life better. And that is what a living book is. I, I think that that's why Charlotte Mason probably used the word living because of the [00:13:00] books. The stories that we learn in living books teach us something about life and enrich our lives in some way.
So that's the first thing. The second thing is that living books do not preach at children. So a lot of times in the therapy world, at least recently, I have noticed that there are so many books out there that are like, , One of them that I know of and that I, that I have owned and used in the past, I will admit, is called My Mouth is a Volcano.
And when you read a book like that to children, children are not dumb. Children know that you are trying to teach them a lesson, right? And a living book doesn't necessarily do that. So a living book is not overtly teaching or preaching or shoulding, you know, how people say, don't should on yourself. Like, don't say I should, blah, blah, blah.
We're not shooting on children with living books. In a living book, the storyline is teaching values and lessons and [00:14:00] morals through the story itself and the characters, which are kind of true to life, or funny or enriching in some way. So they don't preach. That's the second thing. The third thing is that adults tend to enjoy reading them over and over.
You actually would like reading the book as well as having your child enjoy it and be learning from it as well. I know we all have these books that we, our kids somehow latch onto when they're young. If you're a parent, I, I guarantee you, you have had this experience where your child latches onto a book that you absolutely hate reading.
Okay? For mine, it was this board book that was an Elmo book. I think we found it on the street in California when we lived there. And in Berkeley, I don't know if other cities do this, but Berkeley is really known for this. People leave stuff out on the curb for free, and you'll just be like out on a walk and find a couple of children's books or whatever.
And the book, , That I hated [00:15:00] reading over and over was an Elmo book that, you know, probably one of my kids was like three years old and really wanted it. I was like, fine, whatever, bring it home, no big deal. But now I still own it because I can't get rid of it because it's so special, even though I kind of hate cartoony characters and stuff.
But it was, I think it was a book that rhymed and it was called Bubbles Bubbles Everywhere. Bubbles Bubbles in my hair. Bubbles Bubbles Everywhere. I mean, I still remember it from probably, I haven't read it in 12 years, right? That book was so annoying to read. It was just so annoying and a living book is not like that.
So a living book is super fun for adults to read as well as for children to read. We recognize them and that they are interesting and fun and engaging, and they don't get old in a sense. That's why they're living. All right. The fourth thing I would say, and I maybe have alluded to this a little bit already, but the fourth thing is that a living book Accurately portrays life and timeless truths.
I think I already said that maybe a little bit [00:16:00] earlier. And then I have a couple of additions that I use when I am looking at a book to consider one, if it's a living book, but really to consider if it's in alignment with the Contigo approach. So if it's. A contigo book, I would say. Contigo is my nature based therapy framework that I developed in my practice, and I have a training that I teach the approach in.
You can get more information at contigoapproach.com , but contigo books are, living books, but they also have these two additional things that I look for. And one of those things is visually engaging images or illustrations. When I am looking at a book and assessing whether it is a living book that could be used as a contigo book in my practice, I'm looking at the the images and thinking about how children will perceive those images or illustrations.
So I try to stay away from cartoons. I think kids are exposed to those a lot today. And I'm looking at the illustrations to [00:17:00] see if they're interesting and if they are novel for children. And I think this is really important because kids today are exposed to so much cartoon kind of based images like anime and movies.
Fake images, kind of. And I think illustrations, a lot of times living books are older. , they, they have like really beautiful quality illustrations in them. And so I think when kids are exposed to more true to life illustrations, we're helping them to notice details that maybe they wouldn't have to notice in daily life.
Those things that are different from things they are exposed to in daily life are, are really rich, Activities or experiences to offer children in our therapy sessions with them outdoors. And then the last thing I would add is, does the book foster ideas in your mind as a therapist for what you could do in alignment with the book in a therapy session with children?
So [00:18:00] when you. Read the book. Does your mind automatically kind of come up with ideas of treatment activities that you could frame a session or a camp day around? So could children act out the story in some way? Maybe the story has a variety of different animals in it. The kids could make their own animal masks with nature materials and recyclables, and then they could act out the story.
Or Could the children make an art project related to the story or do a group game related to the story? Or is there an activity that you could plan that would be related to the storyline? So I will give an example of this right now. In my practice, we have a spreadsheet that we use to List living books as well as the ages of the children that they may be appropriate for.
We have a brief description of the books of the book itself, [00:19:00] and we also link it to the therapeutic theme. , if you have not heard the episode on therapeutic themes and how we use those in planning camps, you can listen to episode 67, the one right before this and learn about the therapeutic themes there.
But that is in our spreadsheet. And then we also have a column in the spreadsheet for treatment activity ideas. So it, this spreadsheet is kind of a brain dump area for where we keep a running list of the books that we have in my practice or that we've used and then the treatment ideas related to those and how we can use those for camp.
And the way that that then makes planning for camp very easy is that We have those therapeutic themes, again, listen to the last episode, and we can go to that book list and we can pull out, , a book for the day one therapeutic theme of building bedrocks. And we look at the spreadsheet, we find a book for building bedrocks, we choose that book and then we plan a group [00:20:00] activity or a treatment activity around that book.
So it will make more sense if you actually see the spreadsheet. And for that reason, I'm going to give you another freebie. I've been trying to give away a lot of freebies lately for y'all. , I'm going to make a sample spreadsheet for you all and share some of our favorite books in my practice. So you see the spreadsheet, , where you can actually make a copy of that spreadsheet to use in your own practice.
So you can, if you want to start using books in your practice to inspire creative treatment planning, then you can use this spreadsheet and kind of start adding to it yourself. So when we have the spreadsheet, we, , List all of those books and I'm going to share an example for you So that you understand what I mean when I talk about this.
So for example, one of the books is called Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and In the [00:21:00] description column of the spreadsheet, we have a very short description of that book so that we can kind of have an idea what the book is about. If someone, we use this in my practice. So all the therapists that are working at camp have access to this.
So when they're planning camp, they can go to the spreadsheet and then just kind of see the description of the book so that they have an idea of what the book is. And the description, it says a donkey finds a magic pebble and makes a wish. But it brings about unexpected results that separate him from his family.
Okay. Now I kind of want to know how that turns out, right? That, that is an example of a living book. You're kind of interested by the one line description of that book, it's interesting and you kind of wonder what's going to happen. Under the age range column, I have seven to ten for seven to ten year olds because, and I have a little description there that says some pages have longer stretches of text, so it might not be appropriate for like a four year old because the, the language load might be a little too much for a [00:22:00] three or four year old to process., The theme is weathering the storm. And again, listen to last week's episode. You'll understand what that means when you listen to that. , that theme is about kind of conflict or, or dealing with hard things. in our lives. And so that was the category that I chose to put this book into. Some books will fall into different categories.
The, the spreadsheet just helps us to have the category there that is most appropriate. , but it's not that you couldn't use this book on a different day of camp. And honestly, if you get this download, Um,, where I don't think I told you where to get the download, did I? Go to therapyandthegreatoutdoors.com/books and you can get the spreadsheet. That maybe I should have told you that earlier. so you can use this spreadsheet of books, even if you don't use the therapeutic themes framework that I taught last week. You can use books to inspire planning for camp, no matter what kind of framework you use to plan [00:23:00] your camps.
In the treatment activity ideas column, what I wrote, and this was just off the top of my head, again, there's probably millions of other ideas you could do with this book, but I wrote, make magic pebbles or painted rocks, then act out the story. So when I read that story, I looked at the book, I read the story, I decided what age it was for, I decided what day of camp it would work for, and then I came up with a really simple treatment activity idea that involves nature because we're going to be painting rocks and then they can take those home and they can act out the story from the book.
Now, I don't have any more detail from that and I don't have the book in front of me, so I can't go into more detail, but really, There are books, too. I mean, right under, right underneath that one, I have another book called The Wizard Comes to Town. And this one I wrote, this could inspire a whole week of camp activities.
Make wizard costumes, make magic wands, make potions, make up spells, etc. Like, have a wizard party at the end of the week. There's [00:24:00] so many things you could do with, just inspired by that one book. So When you start looking at living books, the cool thing is that they will naturally make you come up with ideas for what you could do during therapy sessions.
And again, I think I said we only use books to plan camp, but you absolutely could plan these, use books to Use living books to plan any treatment session that you have with kids. Okay. So that's an example or a couple of examples of different living books. Now, when we, I don't know if I explained this well, when we plan A session using these living books.
What we do is we use that therapeutic themes framework. We have our therapeutic themes for each day of the camp week. And then the spreadsheet makes it very easy to just go to the spreadsheet and find a book for that theme of the week. So I think that's it for this week. If you want to get a [00:25:00] copy of that spreadsheet with, I'll, I'll put 10 or 15 books just to kind of stimulate your, your thinking and your creative treatment planning on there.
And you can get that again at therapyandthegreatoutdoors.com/books I almost forgot what the. End of it was going to be. And if I want to hear from you, if this is helpful to you. So I spend a lot of time and energy and money producing this podcast for you every week, and it is so helpful to me when I hear from you all, because podcasting is this weird
forum where I'm talking into a mic and putting it out there and there's not kind of feedback on it in the moment, right? So if this helps you or if my work has helped you at all, would you please do me the favor of two minutes of leaving a review for the podcast? Because it really helps it reach more people when there are reviews of the [00:26:00] podcast and that would help me too.
It helps me keep on keeping on when I get Positive feedback from y'all. So if this helped you, please leave a review of the podcast, or you can always reach out to me inside of the therapy and the great outdoors community too. If you're not already there, it's free to join. And I am there all the time. I read every post that is there and I will answer your questions there.
Anything related to the podcast you can always post a question inside the free therapy and the great outdoors community, and I will answer there. So until next time, I will see you all next week. Bye.
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