Hello one and all, welcome back to the best nature program of all! Lace up your boots, grab your water bottles and put on your game face for a day in the life of your Knee High Naturalists.
We were greeted with a beautiful fall morning, all of smiling and excited for a day of fun and exploration. Many bugs were active and present this morning, giving us an in depth look at the homes of sow bugs and roly-poly’s! We were able to peel chunks of decaying wood off a log and peer into critter habitats, observing that they love to spend their time in tunnels and small spaces together. We found a few millipedes and our first centipede of the season, he was very fast, but we were able to catch him for a closer look—they tickle our hands when we hold them! We talked about habitats, the homes that critters live in and how to respect their habitats when we discover them in nature. In honor of Youth Confidence Day, we worked on finding and picking up our very own bugs today instead of asking our friends. While it was a little scary at first, we all got the hang of it and quickly began capturing our own critters, so proud and excited to show our friends our discoveries! We sang a quick rendition of our Good Morning song before moving to the pavilion to start our day.
We ate together, chatting about our weekends, pumpkin picking, apple processing and birthdays, enjoy the calm morning. We decided to take our confidence building one step further with lite “bouldering” outside of the pavilion. We showed each other the best ways to climb all of the different rocks, how to slide down off them, the best ways to climb down and which ones were safe to jump off of. We cheered each other on and waited patiently as our friends gathered the courage to tackle new rocks! After our thorough and energetic warm up, we were finally ready to tackle the obstacle course awaiting us in the pine forest. We gathered our water bottles, brushed off our boots and hit the trail!
Once we got to the pine forest, we set our boundaries, introduced our climbing tree and climbing rules, and walked through the obstacle course before lining up to take turns. We honed our balance as we walked along a fallen tree, using our friends or nearby trees for support, getting more comfortable with every crossing. We jumped, crawled and slithered through our “laser” maze, careful not to touch the green string! It was harder than we thought, so we would restart and take our time, carefully moving our bodies through the web of yarn until we came out unscathed on the other side—this was so much fun! To end the obstacle course, we took turns throwing two pine cones into a circle of sticks, working to improve our aim and fine motor skills. It was a little challenging at first, but eventually we could throw pine cones right into the circle and felt our confidence growing with every new task accomplished!
Afterwards, we all attempted tree climbing and watched our friends, learning the best places to put our feet and hands for a successful climb. It was the first time for some of us and we were so proud of ourselves! We had so much fun hanging, exploring and trying something new with great success. It was too hard to resist joining the fort building crew, so we all began finding sticks, learning how to carry bigger logs and became construction experts. Our fort started the morning with only a roof and ended with a door, strong walls, ample indoor space and our foundation created—talk about some serious team work and confidence building! It was very hard for us to leave our fort unfinished at the end of the day, but we know we’ll be back to continue construction soon. We raced back down the trails, excited to see our families and tell them about our adventurous day.
Thank you all for another incredible week in the lives of your Knee High Naturalists! We had so much fun building confidence, working on our motor skills and working as a team today. We hope you have a wonderful week and look forward to seeing you next time when we learn about Magical Migrations!
