Sounds of Nature: A Short Film For Kids (& Grown Ups Too!)

I ran across this video on YouTube--much like you normally run across things on YouTube: down the rabbit trail of clicks and sidebars. It really is amazing where you land once you start that little clickable journey!

Entitled "Sounds of Nature: Short Films for Kids," this 7 minute video is comprised mostly of nature sounds and music (rather than words or conversation). To me, it really encapsulated the crossroads of where we are in our technology era versus the therapeutic, imaginative world that being outdoors can balance out. When watching this video (created by BatteryPop Videos For Kids), you really feel the digital pull of kids versus the parental pull a lot of us moms and dads have to yank the cord, earplugs, devices right out of our offsprings' hands.

It's an interesting video to be from a YouTube channel & website that's clearly heavy on the side of video games & more. Watch it here or click this link to watch it at YouTube.


In watching it, and watching the main character deal with the woods after his mom and dad yanked his DS, I was struck not only by the dichotomy of the digital and natural world, but also by the level of childhood imagination it illustrates. In the film, you see the main character embrace a creativity that wouldn't be accessible to him when he was "plugged in." You also see a level of engagement in the surrounds...and hints even at mindfulness, meditation, inventiveness, and problem solving. It's almost as if he entered his own world, complete with digital soundtrack, leading him to into nature and the adventures that woods, sticks, wildlife, water, moss, mushrooms, & pine cones can bring. These are the rich skills our children and our future needs.

After watching this video, it stayed with me, somewhat hauntingly. It mirrored my own love-hate relationship with technology, especially when facing my techie tweenager & teenager that live in my own house. I constantly wrestle with all of our levels of being plugged in.

I'd love it if you left a comment about how your reaction to & reflection of this movie short and what thoughts it left swirling in your mind.

Images from http://dh.sunygeneseoenglish.org/2015/02/20/ipat-or-ipa1t/ and https://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/things-you-miss-about-going-camping?utm_term=.kfe6xZ4Wj#.ke8LRMm7Q; video from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7gP5n3y700