Hello to one and all, welcome back to the best nature program of all! Pull on your mittens, grab your thermos of cocoa and join us for a day in the lives of your Knee High Naturalists.
We started off the frosty morning with small insect investigations, though most of us had an idea that we may not see too many of these critters. We talked about how cold, cold weather makes the bugs very sleepy and begin very serious winter preparations. After finding just a few roly-poly’s, three worms, one spider and one millipede, we decided that some of our favorite little friends have probably begun their hibernation! In hopes of finding a few little bugs, we checked the pumpkins by the front of the nature center and found a few frozen, frosty snails. After this chilling discovery, we decided to get class started with an eager round of our Good Morning song before heading to the pavilion where our squash specimens awaited us.
We washed our hands and settled in, excitedly telling each other about our Halloween costumes and festive, fall activities over the weekend. We’ll have a spiderman, a Robin Hood, a unicorn, Elsa, a pumpkin and more! We took a vote on which book we wanted to read and started out with Where Is Bobbi? by Joyce A. Ward. We learned about bob white quail and how to be good friends to both nature and each other through patience, kindness and good listening skills. Once we were done, we watch a short video of bob white quail and tried to whistle like them! We also read a short book called Ready for Fall by Carol Pugliano-Martin and talked about all of the different signs of fall from frosty, chilly mornings to falling leaves, less bugs and less daylight. Before our great pumpkin investigation, we checked the native garden for any other sleepy bugs and discovered a rock that looked like a donut! After finding one lonely, little worm, we talked about our weather today before putting on our scientist hats.
We pulled our pumpkins out into the sun and made observations about their colors, their sizes and their weights. We noticed that one pumpkin was bigger, heavier and orange with a dried stem! The other pumpkin was smaller, mostly green with a little yellow spot and was slightly squishy. We felt confident that something so heavy would sink and not float, so we put our hypothesis to the test! As the orange pumpkin splashed into our bucket, we yelled with excitement as it popped back up and began to bob in the water—pumpkins do float! Now we pondered if the slightly squishy, green pumpkin would float since it was a little different than the orange one…sure enough, this small pumpkin popped back up and gently bobbed inside the bucket, too. After such a major revelation, we decided it was finally time to open the little pumpkins up and see what was inside! We guessed that there would be at least 10 seeds inside, with stringy guts. We were shocked when we cut open the green pumpkin and saw what looked like the inside of a cantaloupe instead of a pumpkin! It had little seeds and was a dull yellow, but it smelled like a normal pumpkin. The orange pumpkin looked just as we suspected with many more than 10 seeds and lots of stringy, squishy, orange guts! Before further exploration, we headed inside to grab extra spoons and did a quick lap around the nature center to check out different animals.
We began our investigation with spoons and magnifying glasses in hand, digging out seeds, trying to squish them in our fingers before they popped out like popcorn! We did smell comparison, talked about their different textures and colors, noticed that there’s a thick, sturdy part of the skin underneath all the squishy strands. Once we were done with our investigation, we gathered up all the pumpkin parts in a bucket and set out on a short hike to stash these for later observations. We each put one of our pieces in a special spot along the trail, planning to come back and see what types of wildlife have visited the festive buffets. We put the two biggest pieces in different habitats to see if there will be a difference in the amount eaten in the coming weeks—check back in later to see what we discover! With the left over seeds in the bottom of our bucket, we each took a handful and scattered them along the trail. Some of us took special care to plant them, digging little holes and tucking the seeds in underneath a warm blanket of soil for the long winter ahead. As we were turning around to head back to the pavilion, a great gust of wind began to blow, sending hundreds of colorful leaves flying through the air! It was pure magic. We began to run around, laughing and screaming with glee as we jumped, spun and twisted trying to catch every color as they fell. We stayed in that spot until the last leaf fell, giddy with excitement as we eagerly gathered as many leaves as we could fit into our pockets before continuing on.
It was time for us to go, we worked together to figure out would be pulling the wagon and would be pushing it on our way back before we set off for our pick-up spot.
Thank you all for a magical week in the lives of your Knee High Naturalists, we hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, a Happy Halloween and we looked forward to seeing you next time when we learn about Wild Weather!
