THEME: nature’s cycles - water
We were a small but mighty group as we learned about the water cycle for this week’s theme. To get our minds in the zone, we brainstormed words that are associated with water - we all came up with some very creative responses. We zoomed out for a bit and observed how much water is on earth compared to land. By tossing the globe around to one another, it became a game. We kept a tally of how many times our right pointer finger landed on water vs land. We made a prediction that water would win - and we were right!
We dived into the water cycle, drawing out our interpretation of what it meant to us. We learned about precipitation, condensation, and evaporation - noting that we’ve observed all three of these behaviors with the wild weather we’ve been having lately.
Ms. Rachel planned a fun activity where we were all water droplets traveling through the water cycle. There were seven stations set up, each representing a different feature in which water travels, whether it be a river, a lake, or even a glacier. At each station, we would collect a colored bead to track where we traveled to. Then, we would roll a die to see where we would travel to next. After traveling as water droplets for some time, we each counted and tallied up our colored beads together. As water droplets, we each visited the ocean, glacier, and lake stations the most.
To bring the water cycle closer to home, we read an interactive story called “Who Polluted the Boardman River?” At the beginning, we started with a clean bowl of water. Throughout the story, each section had different actions where we would pour something into the bowl. Some of these actions were gardeners using fertilizer or a family leaving trash after an afternoon picnic. By the end of the story, the bowl of water looked quite murky. We all quickly agreed that the water quality was very unhealthy and by being more aware of our actions, we could help keep our rivers and streams clean.
We ended our day with a leisurely hike on the Fox Den trail. We stopped to view the Boardman River by the Rock Beach and took a quick trip to the Bear Dens. On the hike there, we each picked an animal we’d want to be and pointed out the perfect habitat. At the Bear Dens, we observed the melting snow compared to our last visit, as well as some turkey tracks. We don’t notice these very often!
Ironically, as we walked back to the Nature Center, we felt a few rain droplets fall from the sky. We all explained, it’s precipitation!