Fall is officially here! We arrived this morning with a chill in the air and decided it was a perfect day to make some hot tea. It would be easy to use tea bags but we wanted the kids to learn that they can use what nature provides for food and drink…so we tried an experiment. We had the children collect some spice bush leaves as well as sassafras leaves to make our tea in the meadow. The kids took turns crushing the leaves and stems and then adding in the hot water. Sassafras was the class favorite!
The kids gathered some milkweed pods and beautiful fall leaves as we walked to the far pond in the pollinator meadow. Today we were going to make boats! As the children listened to instructions, we talked about what makes the best sails and how to add the sails to the boats. We had numerous ideas about what materials to use and then let the kids create! They had so much fun making “pod sailboats”! We had leaves, flower stems, and grasses all used for sails. Some boats worked well and some did not but the kids practiced some great problem solving as they made improvements to their watercraft!
After looking over our map, we realized that we had not been to the Native American site in awhile. Some of the class had mentioned earlier in the semester that they wanted to make bows. So we set off down the Rocky Road where we enjoyed some of the last berries on the Autumn Olive Bush. We found that they are sweeter now after having experienced a frost!
Once we got to the Native American site we set up our tarp in the sunshine for some snack. Several of our Forest Dreamers enjoyed hot Apple cider from the Full Moon hike. The kids scattered around looking for wood for their bows. We suggested looking for wood that had some bend for the best bows. Most everyone joined in and then took off looking for deer to stalk in the tall grass! What a fun day using our imaginations!
