Leafy Learning at Boeing Creek

 This week we met at Boeing Creek in Shoreline, which was a new park for some students/families. We studied leaves, especially of the big leaf maple which is prominent in the park. It was a little wet to be making leaf crowns, but some groups got away with it. All groups had fun exploring in this new terrain!

Tuesday Froglets:

 

 Tuesday Frogs:

 Wednesday Froglets:

Thursday Tadpoles:

 

Arachnids Abound!

We had a lot of fun searching for spiders this week at Hamlin! We lucked out too, and really did find some beauties. Of course we also had to sing spider songs, read a spider story, look for other insects and such under logs, make our own webs and spiders, and play!

Tuesday Froglets:

Tuesday Frogs:

Wednesday Froglets:

Thursday Tadpoles:

Thursday we found a teeny tiny baby salamander! (Top right in the middle of the pic)

And tiny baby mushrooms on cones, it was a day of tiny wonders all around! I think these kiddos are now well adept at helping any frightened adults in their lives, shall they encounter spiders in their homes!

Trees of the Woods

Considering we have had a serious lack of rain this fall (80 days!), "Fun with Fungi" wasn't really possible! So, doing tree week and telling all my "tree tales" seemed like a great idea. We focused on Douglas Fir, Hemlock, Madrone, Big Leaf Maple, and a few others. We did bark rubbings, sang the Trees of Hamlin Park song, heard tree stories, and also enjoyed time in fairy valley building with tree parts, aka branches!

Tuesday Preschool Froglets:

This week this class did an excellent job working together, had fun in fairy valley constructing, and had a BLAST finding "sliding hill" and whipping up clouds of dust!

 

It was bath time after class for those kiddos! 

Tuesday K Frogs:

As a special activity this week the K kids threw "spears" down spear hill. They were excellent at following directions and got lots of turns, I didn't catch each of them in action, but here are many:

Wednesday Preschool Froglets:

This week the kids were really into posing for me! Here are the kiddos hiding (not so sneakily and popping out to scare me!) and up on the log being princesses and such:

They really enjoyed their fairy house building and made some impressive structures, and worked so well together:

And there was some amazing running! I didn't catch them all, but here are a few:

Thursday Tadpoles:

This group made funny tree puppets with their bark rubbings instead of in journals, had fun also with the fairy houses, and while we listened to music we played our stick "instruments":

Thanks for a treerific week everyone!

Bird Week!

It was such a fun week at Froggy Holler! Teacher Erin (red! ;)) rented bird kits from the Seattle Audubon. These kits were full of such wonderful materials, and the kids loved them! Best of all were the real bird skins (aka dead stuffed birds), talons, skulls, and more! Here is some of the action from this week!

Tuesday Preschool Froglets:

 The highlight for the Tuesday class was happening to see the barred ow high up in a tree right above us. Then, a cooper's hawk (we believe) came over right next to the owl! Wow, what luck!
Tuesday K Frogs:

The K students were given the chance to study the bird skins up close, and also enjoyed making "nests" for their bird puppets.
Wednesday Preschool Froglets:

 
Our Wednesday class also enjoyed the skins, the binoculars, making nests, and lots of bird play.
Thursday Tadpoles:

Does it get any cuter than a 2 year old hooting or looking through their binos?
Look I even took a few pictures at Emonds Heights this week!

The students really enjoyed their close up studies there. 
I'm really looking forward to renting more of these kits later this winter and spring, so get ready for more bird fun later this year!