Hello to one and all, welcome back to the best nature program of all! Shed a few layers, grab your sunglasses and umbrellas before joining us for a day in the lives of your Knee High Naturalists.
A sneaky winter morning greeted us like Spring, warmly welcoming us to class for a day of fun in the sun. We didn’t waste any time taking off mittens, gloves and hats as we took all of the new snow paints for a spin. Before long, our fish were swimming in colorful lake of red, purple, blue, green and orange as we happily colored the world around us. Some of us can’t get enough of fishing, so we challenged ourselves to catch only the biggest fish or only the littlest, making sure we had quick releases before casting our lines back out! We all must have been on the same wavelength this morning, some friends got to class and said they wanted to visit the river—that was Ms. Aspen’s plan, too! Knowing we had a big adventure ahead of us, we did a speed clean of our morning meeting spot, a joyous rendition of the Good Morning song and made our way to the pavilion.
We were welcomed by a wall of heat, making us all so hot that we took off even more layers before we washed our hands! Jackets, mittens, hats and baklavas decorated the picnic tables as we happily ate our snacks in warmth. We got new books today and worked on our voting skills to choose today’s snack read. It was tough, but we chose A Beaver Tale by Rebel Williams and learned how beavers build their homes. We learned that beavers use their teeth to cut down trees big and small before pulling their wood through the water to the construction site. Their big, webbed back feet help them swim even faster while their third eyelids help them see better underwater. They use their tails to slap the water and scare away any coyotes or wolves who are watching on shore! We even learned that beavers will swim to the bottom of the river/lake to grab mud with their hands before coming back to the surface and using the mud like glue to build their houses. We love beavers! Since we finished so quick, we read our second book, Do You Have a Hat? by Eileen Spinelli. We read about famous scientists, artists and even Abraham Lincoln and all of the different hats they wore. Francisco de Goya, for example, wore a hat with candles on it so he could paint at night! We had so much fun talking about our favorite hats and what we would put on our special hats.
After snack, we put on our snow scientist hats and filled three jars with fresh snow. We chose three locations and made hypotheses on what would happen to our snow based on where we put it. Our first friend chose to leave it outside and we guessed it was probably going to stay the same because it was still cold outside. Our second friend chose to put their snow inside the pavilion, on top of a picnic table below the heater. We guessed that this snow would probably melt because of the heat, but didn’t know how much would melt. Our final friend chose to put their snow inside the pavilion bathrooms, in front of the vent. We all guessed that it was going to turn into water because our bathrooms are very warm. Before we headed out on our hike, we observed that there was a line of little puddles along the pavilion and discovered that the water dripping off the roof is what made them!
To get to the bottom of the hill we were going to hike down we decided we’d rather be penguins, so we sat down and slowly slid ourselves down the hill—this was a lot more fun than walking! Once we had all made it down the first hill, we decided we wanted to become logs and suddenly there was a forest of little logs rolling down the hill! We carefully walked like penguins for the last tiny hill and marveled the bridge, dreaming about the day we can finally cross it. We noticed a big, dark cloud in the distance and talked about what clouds like that bring. We know in the summer they can bring thunderstorms and in the winter they can bring snow, we had fun guessing what we might get! We settled on probably getting a little bit of rain and continued making our way to the creek. We stopped to admire a beautiful, fuzzy patch of Staghorn Sumac before crossing the bridge to Jack’s Creek. We carefully walked over the boardwalk with our arms out, keeping us balanced until we made our way to the end.
We talked about safety rules and boundaries for winter at the creek before eagerly conducting even more snow experiments! We began tossing different sized chunks of snow into the creek and were delighted to find that they float. Soon, there were little snow balls bobbing down the creek as we cheered them on. Some friends carefully reached down to touch the creek, feeling more grounded as it tickled our finger tips. We even found a living spider, slowly making his way across the snow! We all dropped what we were doing to rush over and observe it, wondering where it came from and where it was going. We got a call saying that there was indeed a thunderstorm heading our way, so we packed up our stuff and began the trek back. One of our friends offered to lead the group back, showing us how to balance over the boardwalk and the safest way to climb up a snowy hill.
By the time we got back to the pavilion, most of our layers had come off and we were sweating! We decided that splashing in the puddles is the best rain day activity, so we splished and splashed with all our might. We even had friends eagerly catching the snow run off with their heads, laughing every time a cold drip dropped in their hair! Out of nowhere, we began to hear a rumble…soft at first, it ended with a big boom! We moved into the pavilion and talked about the very special weather today before checking in on our experiment. Our guesses were correct! The snow inside the bathroom was almost completely melted, the snow below the heater was half melted and the jar outside barely melted. It’s fun to be a scientist! To end our rainy day, we had an activity called Who Lives In a Tree and took turns adding different animals and bugs to our felt tree, explaining why they might call trees their home. Just before we left, Sam the spider caught Catie the caterpillar in his web, ready for a big lunch!
Thank you all for a unique and wonderful day in the lives of your Knee High Naturalists. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and we look forward to seeing you next time when we become winter olympians!
