Family Nature Class

It is so fun to be leading parent/ nature hikes again.  I love the opportunity to be out in the woods connecting children and their parents to their local park.

This week we started class with three station activities:
Books on a blanket
Making Nature Crowns
Mystery Bags with (acorns, an apple, rocks, )

Then on our hike we find three different types of trees:  Can you tell them by their bark? It was a tactile investigation search. This is an activity to work on observation skills and develop language.

We also did a Bingo game where we found different plants and animals along our trail.

We stopped in a grassy grove for Story Time and Snack.  I read Subway Sparrow by Leyla Torres  a book in three languages and a story about how a community can come together to rescue a bird.  A resource on what to do if you actually find a baby bird is on the Portland Audubon's website.

I also read Birds by Kevin Henkes....a natural followup activity art activity to this story would be to actually draw a picture of what the flight of birds would look like if their flight pattern actually left "tracks across a sky." It is a simple story, but with bright and vivid pictures it is great for sharing with groups.

Songs we did included:

Cheep, Cheep Little Bird will you tell your name to me? an intro song...

Little Bird Little Bird Fly to my Window as learned from Elizabeth Mitchell.

A Poem: Five Feathered Birds

Five Feathered birds sitting by the door;
One flew away and then there were four.
Four feathered friends singing in the tree,
One flew away and then there were three
Three feathered birds looking at you,
one flew away and then there were two
Two feathered birds sitting in the sun
One flew away and then there was one.
One feathered bird looking like a hero
He flew away and now there are zero.

A song about the Birds sung to the tune of the Mulberry Bush.
This is the way we fly like birds. (pretend to fly around).

An Extra Week of Summer

This fall the students in Seattle did not go back to school in early September- as our teachers and the school district worked on a contract.  We have made the best of it: The boys played with friends. They rode scooters and biked.  We relished the beginning of autumn by hiking and picnicking in the forest, identifying new birds in our backyard- a Western Scrub Jay, and playing baseball.  We baked bread.   We picked apples and  made fresh pies and crisp to share with friends and neighbors.  Now that school will start again in a day we must make the most of our last day of extended summer:  The boys will help me with my Family Nature Program at the Audubon where I lead the Tiny Trips for Tots program:  More practicing the art of wandering, noticing, & feeling the fall air. 

Two years ago I wrote these words about September and it is still true. 

I want my children to learn fall by the light of it.  We look out in the morning before we are even dressed.  We eat a hot breakfast outside in the crisp cold morning and we play outside until the sunset.  We walk to market through the wild gusts that blow clouds and occasional storms overhead.  The leaves and seed pods twirl down from trees.  We watch squirrels gathering seeds, the chickadees and sparrows flocking to feeders, and the crows heading home to roost at the end of day. 

Fall is child sized.  Days can truly be experienced by children from sunset to sundown. 

Send children outside: Nature is the best training ground for STEM careers - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I get many links from the Children and Nature Network. This one shows that STEM learning/ preparation can happen naturally when we allow students to explore with wonder and creativity outside.

http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2015/08/23/Send-children-outside-Nature-is-the-best-training-ground-for-STEM-careers/stories/201506170016

Hiking with sticks

It has been a while since we have gone on a nice out if the city nature hike. Today we headed to Franklin Falls. It was hot in the city. The woods, river and mountain air felt good.

It is not a long hike, however the boys seemed a bit tired. They complained more than I had ever heard them- saying "we're tired, we're hungry, can we go home now?"

The falls didn't even enchant them until after a hearty lunch in the shade. Then the rocks, pools of water and the waterfall spray rejuvenated them. They were happy all the way down the path: investigating trees. Looking up and down. Wanting to visit the river- which we did.

Sticks were a wonderful aid to their explorations. They poked, they swung, They skipped. They watched them float down the river.

Forest has a Song

Forest has a Song is a book by Amy Ludwig Vanderwater and Illustrated by Robbin Gourley. I checked it out from the library and am excited to explore these simple poems more with my children and my Tiny Tots adventurers.  

The poems are similar to the Joyful Noise:poems for two voices  that I have used by Paul Fleischman in my intermediate grades classrooms. Within each poem are often two perspectives...the a child noticing fall and some leaves, a child and a chickadee, a child and a squirrel. 

These poems might be a nice springboard for writing poems with children. I can also imagine a parent and a child reading them together. 

Some books are a completed work of art .. Others are art that inspires. I think this book may be the latter. 

Rain, Thunder and Happiness!

This week we have finally had rain.  We have all hungered for this water.  We feel full again.  We are happy to know that the trees can drink their fill.  We are happy to note that maybe the grass will grow again.  We are happy to see little rivers of water running from the gutters- reminding me that we should get rain barrels.  But for now: The boys are carrying and collecting water..building dams..and I am content to listen to their voices & hums mingling with rain sounds out the open window. 

Our culture likes to measure things, but it is the subtle things that tell us the most. As Rachel Carson wrote about in Silent Spring sometimes it is the silences (or the sounds) that tell us the most.  Such as passing a classroom with a roomful of engaged and excited students.  My children humming tells me that they are growing and doing just fine.  At age six they know exactly how to dress and prepare for the rain and mud.  Pulling on old clothes, rain jackets and boots.  Ready to stomp and play with bright eyes.  Puttering. They are off!

How have we gotten here: 

TIme.

The open spaces of summertime have allowed the boys to be able to play.

A safe backyard- despite the hourly sounds of sirens. 

Sticks and mud piles.  

No tv til age 6 and now only minimal. 

Books, museums, and blessings.

Parks 

Community

Family

Thank you.

Toddler Tales and Trails August: Moles, Insects, & Spiders

Today’s T&T was on insects, spiders & moles.  It was quite the broad topic, but this once a month class at our local Audubon Environmental Education Center is an introduction to young people and their families to getting out and exploring.   By having such a broad topic it allowed us to think about how insects & worms in the soil also feed the moles underground as well as birds aboveground. 

For a warm-up we made fingerprint insects and spiders with ink pads and colored pencils.  If kids and their adult wanted to make up a story to go with it they could. 

One of my six year old son's had made a model of the activity with me before hand.  He had dictated words to go along with his fingerprint pictures.  Here is his story.  

Once there were three spiders and one ant. 

They found a hole in a house. 

They climbed through it. 

They slept in it.  

And the next morning they woke up.  They got out of the hole and then they ate the food on the ground by the kitchen table. Then 3 more spiders and 2 more ants came with a sandwich. 

The End. 

Books we read were: Itsy Bitsy Spider- A Classic Book Illustrated by Nora Hlib, Be Nice to Spiders by Margaret Bloy Graham and Underground by Denise Fleming.  

Then we headed outside and pretended we were moles. The trails were our tunnels.  My twin boys and I had hid string worms, which we had the kids search for- as well as search for mole holes.  After collecting the worms I encouraged the kids to take them home and make worm trail art with paint or mud and make up stories about their worms. 

We went on a very short hike to a relatively open area in the woods where we played a game where the adults pretended they were birds and the children pretended they were insects.  Kids could choose how to move. Flutter like a butterfly, Squirm like a worm.  If the insect/ creepy crawly froze we said they were safe.

Finally we searched for bugs in the leaf litter.  It was tough finding them as it is very dry. However we found a few & many signs of decomposers such as holes in leaves.