Forest Dreamers have been perfecting their observational skills this week. We’ve kept a sharp eye out for any thing that hops! We have visited some of our favorite spots as well as a few new ones! We used paint to create symmetrical butterflies, leaves to create creatures, kindling to create fire, black walnuts to create ink, and a whole bunch of kitchen essentials to create pokeberry play dough!
Monday/Wednesday
We had a few extra visitors on Monday and we all gathered together on the first official chilly day and made our first fire! Creating the fire was a group effort and we were all pretty much beginners! We got a little something going and were pretty proud with ourselves! After the fire, we hiked to a new location and found some new things! We found the new composting toilet on the new property and learned how it works!
We spread out a blanket and read the story Leaf Man by Lois Elhert. There were some pretty neat pictures of things made totally out of leaves. We used this inspiration to make our own leaf creature!
On Wednesday, we got a chance to see some really neat owls up close. We met with a screech owl and a barred owl and learned how they perched onto Ms. Tara’s hand! We cleared some black walnuts off the paved road, collected some mushy, gushy ones and boiled them to make our own ink. The ink was a light tannish color, We let it steep for the rest of the day. On Monday, we will test it out to see if letting it sit made it darker!
- Beautiful barred owl
- Ms. Paula being silly!
- Adding to the fire!
- Black walnuts made ink!
- Working on his Leaf Man
- Ooo!
- We have the black walnuts ready to ink!
- Smasking the husks of the walnuts!
- Keep the fire going!
- Leaf creatures in the making!
- Drawing a face!
- Using dust to draw
- Directing Ms. Tara on how to clear out the walnuts!
- Ms. Tara helping!
- Running away from fire smoke!
- Hello there!
- Nice to meet you!
- The fire did ok for our first try!
- Checking out the composting toilet!
- “I see wood chips down there!”
- Using chalk on stumps
- Leaf creature!
- Adding the walnut husks to the pot!
- Ms. Tara fanning the flames!
- Hey!
- Toucing lambs ear
- Pondering the fire
- Art can happen anywhere!
- What is this new building? (Its the composting toilet!)
- Friends by the fire!
- The leaves felt so soft!
- “It’s a robot”
- Pose!
- Happy brothers!
- Scat with lots of seeds!
- What we need for the ink!
- It looks quite dark!
- Ink concoction!
Tuesday/Thursday
Tuesday we had a chance to do what real scientists do. We learned that Irvine’s monarchs were ready to make the long, hard journey to Mexico. We thought of how fun it would be for someone to find one of the butterflies we had released! Some friends took turns gently adding a sticker to the butterfly’s wing while others had a chance to let the butterfly go off of their finger!
This inspiration led us to our journals. We took a look at some taxidermy butterflies up close and noticed the symmetry. We thought it would be fun to make symmetrical butterfly prints in our journal with paint! We used some of the pretty colors we noticed in the butterfly wings to make our creation!
We ended up at one of the only small remaining patches of water left and did some serious frog catching! Everyone is getting quite good at this!
Thursday was another day of catching, releasing and creating! We each took a turn following a step to help make beautiful pokeberry play dough. We carefully measured out the ingredients, added heat, and some pokeberry ‘juice’ and voila! We used our own personal ball of dough however we saw fit! We ended up deciding that making leaf and letter prints were really cool. We liked making instant stamps of natural designs!
Down at the ‘Grasshopper Trail’ (which is what we now affectionately call one of the meadow trails), we found seemingly hundreds of hopping critters sailing from blade of grass to blade of grass! Watching everyone scamper to collect them was very entertaining. The class expressed interest in bringing out some sweep nets next week and trying this again!
Once we reached the flat part of the meadow, Ms. Tara showed us where wild persimmons were growing. We all had a chance to try one. Everyone agreed they tasted quite strange. Persimmons can leave a very dry taste in the mouth and are much better when cooked or baked into something like a bread. We were proud of them for giving it a try!
The last part of class was our favorite little muddy puddle for those frogs again! We will keep learning about all things that hop, crawl and scamper as long as we have such a happy and enthusiastic class!
- How does that persimmon taste?
- Showing off her ‘cape’!
- Butterfly taking her time to fly off their fingers!
- Finding letters in our name!
- Forest buds!
- Helping create a print of our letters!
- Frog catching puddle!
- Pretty butterfly symmetry prints
- Ms. Jenna showing us the difference between male and female butterflies
- Making an ‘ant house’ out of rocks
- There goes the sticker!
- He loved the maggots in the black walnut!
- Helping Ms. Jenna
- Pretty printing
- Neat!
- Persimmons!
- He found a “P” in his name!
- Mud ball!
- Our expert frog catchers!
- Grasshopper crew!
- Adding his ingredient to the play dough
- Smooshing the color!
- Pretty orange matched his hoodie!
- The print worked!
- Artist hard at work
- Everyone listening!
- Smoosh!
- There are those maggots!
- Biting a new fruit!
- Stirring our liquid that turned to dough!
- Grasshopper patrol!
- Printing a pretty leaf!
- She made an “L”!
- Butterfly!
- There goes the butterfly!
- Adding the water
- Adding the salt
- There’s a grasshopper in there!
- Perfect letter “H” print!
- Happy n’ muddy!
- Ms. Tara giving the scoop!
- Grasshopper brigade!
- oooo!
- Her wings are open!
- She’s tagged and ready to go!
- Tagging butterfly
- Playing a silly passing game
- Ms. Paula making a sound effect for the story!
- Walnut pals!
- Hello!
- Hey I see you!
- Happy at our current favorite spot!
- Observing together!
- Log rolling like a pro!
- Stir!
- Ms. Paula helping make a print
- Push!
- About to pounce on grasshopper!
- Frog frezny!
- Aww how cute!