Seward Park Tree Walk Full with Map.pdf

I was happy to find this tree guide/ walk of a local park. I am always asking questions after hiking in the park. There is always more to learn. This is a guide to get started asking even more questions.

http://www.seattle.gov/trees/docs/Seward%20Park%20Tree%20Walk%20Full%20with%20Map.pdf

Sharing the Harvest

Today I took a load of fresh greens and berries from our school garden to the Food Bank. They were so thankful.

I will be back for another load ASAP! They also asked me to spread the word that they love neighborhood giving gardens and that if you grow food for the food bank -that some of the best cooks in the world will know exactly how to prepare what you grow! They will even give you seeds in exchange.

Mud pies and green spaces – why children do better when they can get outdoors

Time to get out and water the trees in our neighborhood- we need them to keep us healthy in so many ways.
Seattle Releaf program suggests 15-20 gallons two times a week. When I read articles such as this one I am reminded why we are going up and down the block with gallons of water for the street trees! Join us!

https://theconversation.com/mud-pies-and-green-spaces-why-children-do-better-when-they-can-get-outdoors-43151

Toddler Tales and Trails Butterflies: July

The boys and I led an hour class at a our local nature center yesterday.  We focused on Butterflies and Birds and a scavenger hunt for our walk.  Butterflies turned out to be the perfect theme as monarch butterflies have been sighted right at the park and we have seen many swallowtails in the gardens as well.

 We started the day with a short, simple activity of putting dot stickers on cut out butterflies.  If kids finished early they could color, but mainly this was just an activity to build fine motor skills and get the theme into kids minds.  I just remembered that there is a way that you can fold a piece of paper so that it looks like a caterpillar and then open it for a butterfly.  That would have been fun too. 

Our stories for the day were The Caterpillar and the Pollywog by Jack Kent and Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian by Margarita Engle and Julie Paschkis. Although I changed the words a bit, we did a poem with hand actions called The Caterpillar from a book called Hand Rhymes collected by Marc Brown.  

Along the hike we looked for butterflies and also places where they might leave eggs or gather food and pollen.  We also just had fun finding signs of animals in the forest.  We stopped in a few places and put up our “deer ears” to listen to birds and see if we could spot them.  After spotting a gray squirrel we recited the Gray Squirrel shake your bushy tale poem…and in closure we sang Shake your Sillies Out accompanied by a picture book by Raffi.  

The idea I have behind a once a month Toddler Tales and Trails class is to just to get children outside and to bring in new concepts to explore and focus on.  Butterflies will be one of our explorations as a family this month.  One of my children has already asked if we can raise butterflies again & so I will look into it as well as perhaps we will go to a plant store and find out what plants we could add to our garden to attract more butterflies.  Also later in the month I will be setting out a booth with a butterfly focus in our local P-Patch.