Hello one and all, welcome back to the best nature program of all! Put on your imagination hats, grab your craft supplies and join us for a day in the lives of your Knee High Naturalists.
Ms. Jenn welcomed us to class this morning, excited to see our smiling faces! We worked together to find a few sleepy, chilly roly-poly’s under our favorite logs before sharing our upcoming plans with each other. We talked about the fun things we’re doing this weekend and all of our favorite families members we get to see for Thanksgiving! We jumped right into our Good Morning song before teaming up to haul our especially heavy wagon to the pavilion where a sweet little critter was waiting to greet us…
The smallest little wooly bear caterpillar was curled up in front of the pavilion, very cold and very glad to see us! We gently scooped him up and found a cozy leaf for him to sleep on underneath the warm heaters. We settled in for tasty snacks as Ms. Jenn began to read Feathers, Not Just for Flying by Melissa Stewart. Cardinals were our first bird of discussion as we learned that male birds have the prettiest colors to attract mates while female birds need camouflage so they can raise their chicks in disguise. We learned that feathers are indeed for more than just flying, they can act like sponges, sunscreen, shovels for digging, lifejackets to stay afloat in water and can even help carry building materials! As we wrapped up our book and began our weather observations for the day, we noticed that the caterpillar was gone and the leaf was wiggling around…the caterpillar had warmed up and was ready to explore! After our weather report was finished, we gathered up all of our hats and mittens before hitting the trail in search of wreath materials.
While we don’t normally pick flowers or leaves from plants, we learned that all of native plants and grasses are entering their own form of hibernation and it would be ok and even helpful to pick our favorite things off them! Many seeds were dispersed as we picked, pulled and tugged on different flowers, floating the air to their new homes. We found tiny tamarack pine cones, small, round pine cones from white pines and long, skinny, sappy cones from red pines to use, too. As we were on the hunt for red, yellow and orange leaves, we swung by the pine forest and had to take a quick tree climbing break. Before Ms. Aspen and Ms. Jenn’s eyes, we all transformed into rolling logs as we dropped to the ground in fits of giggles, rolling to and fro with pine needles in our hair! We' had so much fun being silly and enjoying nature together today.
Before heading back to the pavilion, we stopped by the overlook to marvel at the ginormous crane and the new bridge! We watched the crane move something though air, up so high we could hardly believe it. After hearing about the bridge for three months, we couldn’t believe it was sitting right in front, waiting to be moved to its new home! We loved the excavator and had a hard time pulling our eyes away from all of the fun construction equipment to start our own wreath construction. As we glued and picked the perfect nature artifacts for our wreaths, we chatted and got design inspirations from each other. Some friends used pine cones while others used milkweed pods, some wreaths had more cedar and pine while others had more leaves! We wrapped up our crafting, washed the glue off our hands and headed up to meet our families and show them our beautiful wreaths.
Thank you all for another amazing week in the lives of your Knee High Naturalists! We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and we look forward to celebrate your naturalists and their growth for our final session in December!
