Good morning one and all, welcome back to most wonderful nature program of all! It’s starting to feel like Spring has sprung and we are diving right into nature fun. Keep reading to learn what life is like in the day of your Knee High Naturalists…
With a warm and sunny morning, naturalists arrived and friendships were forming. Shovels and rakes became mandatory accessories for the day, rocks and logs were flipped in exploratory play! Sticks and logs were rolled by pairs of friends, all possible rocks were overturned looking for tiny friends. At last, we struck gold! A baby pill bug (roly-poly) was discovered, sleepy from the cold. We ooh’d and ah’d as we passed him around, letting everyone hold him before returning him to the ground. Next we found a tiny worm-like creature, who may have been a baby millipede or something even neater! Once everyone arrived, we sang our Good Morning song long and proud before moving to the pavilion in a big, silly crowd.
Getting used to our routine, we lined up our backpacks and gathered on the blanket to learn about trees before snack. We read a short book about animal homes and learned that trees are wonderful, busy places to be! We even got to see sticks that were chewed up by porcupines and learned that trees are good for much more than just sleeping time. Next, we got to choose our very own critters to add to our tree of life—explaining each time why they fit just right. Some friends put up robins, others put up frogs, we even had friends who added spiders, bats and snakes who may all get along! Soon, we washed our hands and enjoyed our delicious treats before coloring together to create something neat.
Before heading out to hit the trail, we transformed into Nature Detectives to finds signs of animals with great detail. Being the good conservationists we are, we all used the boot brush to get rid of anything invasive from near or far. We stopped at the overlook to see our friend, the Boardman River, and declared the we need three steering wheels to navigate our “boat” through any gale! Moving on from our dreams of aquatic adventures, we made our way to the Porcupine Tree for further investigation. Here, we discovered a giant hole and all made sure to peek our heads in and say hello! We found signs of animals snacking and looked for their homes using our skills of tracking. Soon, we arrived at the mighty Mini Mac, a Knee High Naturalist sized suspension bridge that marked the time to turn back. We took time to take in the view, enjoying the sight of something new!
On our way back, Ms. Miranda taught us about tree rings and how to age woody things! We named all of the colors and counted to six, learn that such a young tree isn’t much bigger than a stick. On our way back up the hill, we decided to take a detour to our own little lumber mill. It was soon declared that this was a construction zone, we were put to work to build the workers home! Too quickly, our day came to end, so we gathered our nature findings and made our way back with friends. We gathered our backpacks and bucket of shovels and rakes, excited to see our families on such a beautiful day!
Thank you all for a spectacular second week of Knee High Naturalists! We had such a wonderful time exploring the Sabin trail with your naturalists and we look forward to seeing you next week and learning about wild and wonderful weather!
