How are you getting your Vitamin N?

Inspired by our co-founder Richard Louv’s book, “Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life,” the Vitamin N Challenge is a commitment to spend more time outdoors this summer, and to share your experience on Instagram using #VitaminN2022 as a way to encourage others to spend more time in nature, too.

Looking for tips and inspiration? Here are some Vitamin N Challenge stories from our children and nature community.

Vitamin N on Instagram

We’re about a month into the Vitamin N Challenge, and it’s been so fun to see the many unique ways that our online community has taken on the challenge! All around the world, children and adults alike are building little rafts of twigs and leaves, discovering tide pools and tussocks, exploring Tumanguya (Mt. Whitney), and more.

Check out some of our favorite #VitaminN2022 posts so far in the photo carousel below. Add your own post on Instagram with the hashtag #VitaminN2022 to join the fun!

Vitamin N: Expectation vs. reality!

By Kristy Omelianuk

Shoe drama. It was hot out. Everyone was tired, even though we’d all just woken up. My two kids and I were about to embark on our first of five nature adventures for the #VitaminN2022 Challenge — and the day was not off to a great start.

Having it on the calendar and reminding my children that we had decided on this goal together AND took a pledge helped somewhat with the grumbles. I also pulled out our Vitamin N Challenge trackers — coloring pages that I had downloaded and printed out from the Vitamin N web page. The prospect of coloring afterwards, with my “good pencils,” was motivating enough to get everyone in the car. 

We went to the South Mountain Reservation Fairy Trail, about 35 minutes from our house. We had brainstormed a list of nature adventure locations closer to home, but I decided to save those for a day we might have less time to travel and explore. Also, we have been to the Fairy Trail before and know that there is a river — also a crowd pleaser.

Highlights of the adventure included:

• The fairies.
• Eating a snack on a big rock in a river.
• My oldest child asking to meditate with me in the river (part of my personal #VitaminN2022 Challenge).
• Just being present in nature with my family.

Challenges, other than the rocky start above, included:

• Not agreeing on the same rock to eat snacks on so we split up for snack time, but it was fine.
• No toilet paper in the bathroom, but fortunately I had my own.
• My younger child falling in the river. A few times.

Note to self: Next time, bring a change of clothes (even just to keep in the car), and a bag for garbage. I did bring sunscreen, bug spray, toilet paper, a small towel for drying off our feet (I knew our shoes would be coming off!), and a small first aid kit that I bought during the pandemic when I was going on a lot of solo adventures with the kids. 

Bring sunscreen, bug spray, toilet paper, a small towel and a first aid kit — and don’t forget a bag for garbage and a change of clothes to keep in the car.

Looking back over my photos from the day makes me smile. Curiosity. Nature play. Family time. Memories. Overall, it was a great experience and I think we are all looking forward to our next adventure together. 

A Letter of Thanks for Nature & Art

By Cynthia Gentry 

I never outgrew the feeling that being in nature is being in a magical place. It just never went away. I am very excited about the Vitamin N Challenge because over the past two years of COVID, I haven’t spent much time outdoors and this is the perfect challenge to correct that trend. I also have not been drawing much — if at all.

Lately I have felt this something growing inside. You know the feeling when something needs to change, or you need to do something, but you’re not sure what it is? The minute I read about the challenge I knew I had to draw things, real or imagined, from my garden and beyond.

For as long as I can remember I have been an artist. When I was younger I mostly drew horses and The Beatles. Now with the Vitamin N Challenge I am very aware of a particular nutrient that has been missing… and I’m going to draw it.

My work, my “day job,” if you will, is designing and building Living Playgrounds based on the biophilic guidelines as outlined by the late Stephen Kellert of Yale. It is my dream for children to have virtually unlimited access to the natural world during the school day. The benefits for children are almost without end. When I graduated from high school we all had to pick a quote that described us to go with our senior picture. Mine was, “I meant to do my work today, but a brown bird sang in the apple tree.” On some level, it appears I was aware of both my ADHD and my attachment to nature. 

So, for the Vitamin N Challenge I am going to draw five pictures a week from my garden for four weeks. I am already floundering. I’ve sketched a dahlia bud which has since bloomed and wilted away while I “had a tizzy.” I can’t draw. That line isn’t right. Your proportions are way off! And, so it goes.

This afternoon my inner panel of judges is not allowed to come play with me. The point is not to create five masterpieces a week four weeks in a row. The point is to really, really see the flower, the inchworm, the frog. The point is to fully embrace the beauty that I find in nature. This isn’t about me. This isn’t about whether or not I can write my own children’s book (hardest one to let go of…). This is about meeting nature where she stands. This is about gazing straight into the eye of the squirrel about to lunge for the tomato on my vine. 

Today, judgment out. The beauty of nature IN!

Thanks for the Vitamin N Challenge! 

Best wishes, 

Cynthia Gentry

Cynthia Gentry is the founder and president of Living Playgrounds, an Atlanta-based company focused on designing and building nature play environments using biophilic design. Cynthia is a sustaining member of the Children & Nature Network.

Thank you to our Vitamin N Participants

Join the community in any of the following ways:

• Write a short summary (750 words or less) about your experience with the Vitamin N Challenge, include at least one awesome photo, and email it to us at info@childrenandnature.org — your story may even be featured in this piece!
• Join The Trailhead, our free online community to let us know how your challenge is going — and to cheer on fellow Vitamin N Challenge takers!
• Share your tips, photos and videos on Instagram. Use the hashtag #VitaminN2022.

Thanks for joining us in this summer’s Vitamin N Challenge!

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