Thursday, February 26, 2015

Thursday Tadpoles, Week 6. Corvids (crows, ravens and jays!)

Todays toddlers hiked to Fairy Valley, looking for crows.  We saw a few on the field, but they flew away before we could observe them.  
K explores the crow fingerplay puppet...5 black crows, flying through the woods!
We made our way to Sliding Rock and took turns going down.  There was a lot of algae growing on the sides, it was slimey when we ran our fingers over it!

Wheeeeeee! 

Some of these kids are so fast, cameras can't even capture the speed!
See you next week!

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Wednesday Froglets, Week 6. Corvids! (Crows, ravens and jays)

Our explorers were so happy to see Teacher Erin and meet the newest member of the Froggy Holler Family, Baby Angus!  They hiked with us again today, Baby Gus is almost 4 weeks old!  What an amazing hiker he is-and his momma too!
Froggies found a new trail with treacherous blackberry vines!  Look out!!
We had a picnic and set one up for the crows, too.  We could see and hear some of their sentinals "CAAW-Caawing" but none were brave enough to come over with the Froggies so close by.  
We read a book about a crow, looked at some pictures of Corvids and even learned a silly crow fingerplay.  Once our snacktime was over, we practiced on balancing log and even surprised some high school kids with our amazing jumps!
See you next week!

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Tuesday Froglets, Week 6. Corvids! (Crows, Ravens and Jays)

Hello Froggy Families!  The most wonderful thing happened today-Teacher Erin came to walk with us and brought Baby Gus!  
These Froggies had so many questions about Angus!  "Can he walk?"  "Can he talk?"  Their curiosity and compassion for Angus and Erin was a joy to see!

We also talked a little bit about Corvids!  Our crow buddies were watching us as we walked through the woods.  We made our way to Blackberry Meadow and threw a few bread crusts out on the grass to see if crows came.  It worked!  A "watcher" or sentry caw-caaawed to alert his friends and soon we had some crows gobbling up the bread.
What a beautiful day it was today!  Too bad the crows were camera shy, but here we are feeding them bread.
We spent a little time at Sliding Rock and explored the new fort with our flashlights.  There was a dragon sleeping inside, so we needed to be extra quiet!  Phew!!

See you next week!
Teacher Kathleen (and Teacher Erin and Tiny Tadpole Gus!)
  



Thursday, February 12, 2015

Thursday Tadpoles, Week 5. Mushrooms

Our Tadpoles began their class by dissecting button mushrooms.  My goal was to create a connection between the scent, touch and sight of mushrooms.  I'd say we were successful!
Look at our scientists!  They found gills, caps, rings and stalks!  Great job, Tadpoles!
It wasn't long before we found a lot of fungus....There's a fungus among us among us among us....
Here we have E holding a very lovely mushroom-it even had a baby slug crawling up the side.  What a treasure!

All aboard the Fungus Train!!  Woo woo!  

See you after mid winter break for Corvid week!
Teacher Kathleen




Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Wednesday Froglets, Week 5. Mushrooms!

Today's Froggies were ready for action!  They spent a lot of time exploring, searching for trash to clean up (GO GARBAGE SUPERHERO'S!) and learning about mushrooms and fungus.  Did you know that a mushroom is a type of fungus?  Did you know that fungus is a type of plant BUT it doesn't have green leaves?  Wow!
We began our class by chopping up button mushrooms.  The smell was very familiar, it reminded us of walking in the woods!  
B and D are busy scientists-just look at those dissections!
You might not find any mushrooms in this photo, but these three friends DID find a sign of SPRING!  Green leaves budding on a bush, oh my!
We found a very mushroomy log in the woods.  We thought it best to make silly faces near it.  :)
After exploring, reading, eating and hiking, we hurried back to the shelter to make mushrooms (and snowmen!) out of playdough.  Ta Dah!  I see a cap, gills and stalk!
See you next week!
Teacher Kathleen




Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Tuesday Froglets, Week 5. Mushrooms

Today's Froglets began their class by dissecting crimini mushrooms.  We learned new words, gills, stalk, ring, cap and were able to identify each of these on our cutting board.  
Armed with our new knowledge, we headed out in search of mushrooms.  It didn't take long before we found some!
Can you identify the gills on this lovely specimin?  
Our hike brought us to "Boat Fort" where we read two books about mushrooms.  
Mushroom in the Rain by Mirra Ginsburg and Life Cycle of a Mushroom by Angela Royston.
A discovers an amazing specimin near the creek!
Our class hiked back to the shelter to make mushroom models with playdough.  They made all kinds of mushrooms and some pizza's too!
See you next week! 
Teacher Kathleen



Thursday, February 5, 2015

Thursday Tadpoles, Week 4. The Amazing Journey of Mr. Raindrop!

Our tadpole class learned about the Amazing Journey of Mr. Raindrop, first with steam captured in a bag and then with cotton balls disguised as rainclouds.  After our experiment, it was time to gear up and go for a hike!

Oh My! Would you look at how lucky our tadpoles were today!  Here we are, enjoying the beautiful creek as it ran through the park!  

We had to be careful not to wade in past our boots.  The creek rarely runs, so this was such a treat!

Loook at all these darling Tadpoles braving the weather.  :)  Big kudos to caregivers too!
What do we see here?  Is this a clue about next week's curriculum?  It really is a beautiful mushroom and we were lucky enough to see one intact.  (and it was lucky enough to avoid the toddler boots!)
See you all next week!
Teacher Kathleen


Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Wednesday Froglets, Week 4. The Amazing Adventure of Mr. Raindrop!

Wednesday Froglets learned about the Amazing Adventure of Mr. Raindrop!  We unrolled a big scroll of his journey, then experimented with a few things ourselves.
We captured steam in the "ziplock bag of SCIENCE" by placing it over the mouth of a thermos.  The water in the thermos was really hot, so we kept our science hands away from the thermos!  :)   Our bag filled with steam and we were able to touch it once it was removed.  Amazing!
This is a photo of us "being clouds" by dipping cotton balls into water and squeezing them to make RAIN! 
After putting on our gear and hitting the trail, we found the most cozy and interesting fort, so we just had to stay and explore!
Perhaps you can see the door of sticks and logs that our gentlemen classmates made for us.  I sure felt safer once that door was up!  ;)
Here are three boys in a beautiful and natural setting!  This is what Nature School is all about!  Unstructured play and exploration!  Keep up the good work, guys!
Working really hard made our froglets pretty tired.  We read three action packed books-

The Wide Mouthed Frog by Keith Faulkner
Dogzilla by Dav Pilkey
Dinotrux by Chris Gall

These books are pretty silly and worked perfectly with this group of imaginative kiddos!
See you next week!
Teacher Kathleen


Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Tuesday Froglets, Week 4. The Amazing Journey of Mr. Raindrop!

Our class learned about Mr. Raindrop's amazing journey.  Starting as rain, he falls into streams and is washed out to see.  Evaporated by the sun, Mr. Raindrop joins his friends in the clouds only to fall back to Earth and start all over again!
          Here we are with the drawing of Mr. Raindrop's Journey
We had a great time pretending to be rainclouds (cotton balls) and making rain all over the shelter!
We also conducted an experiment to capture steam.  We placed a ziplock bag over a thermos of hot water and it was amazing!  The bag filled with steam, which eventually ran back down and started to drip-just like Mr. Raindrop!  How cool!
We hiked over to Dinosaur Valley to look for mud.  We found a LOT of it-and some amazing tracks!  
 These are some pretty cool mushrooms!
See you next week!  
Teacher Kathleen


Wednesday Froglets, Week 3. How do animals stay warm in winter?

Our brave Froglets participated in an amazing science experiment today.  
We learned that animals often fatten up for winter.  The layer of body fat acts as insulation and keeps them warm.  How can we prove it?  With vegetable shortening and ice water!
Try it at home! Put a thick layer of shortening on your finger, then stick it in ice water.  Your finger will stay warm!  Amazing! No wonder polar bears can swim in those cold waters!
We headed out to the woods to look for animals, but all we found was this great nature playground.  D explores the climbing wall.
The Froglets put together a teeter totter and had a great time taking turns.
This fort was a really cozy place to have a snack and listen to books.  The Froglets really enjoyed Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey and Here Comes Jack Frost by Kazuno Kohara.  
Oh my, this must have happened in last month's windstorm! What a surprise! It has been awhile since we explored this ridge in the forest.  
See  you next week!  
Teacher Kathleen