The Algae Ponds
This Forest Dreamer class LOVES water! I don’t think I can say this enough 🙂 Whenever we have the chance, they request to play in the ponds or streams. Today, we decided to take them to the ponds for the first time in search for signs of life!
We set off down the Vernal Pond trail (my favorite) in search for emerging animals. Â Everyone was amazed by the skunk cabbage starting to come up and several of our friends swore they could smell the odiferous fragrance. Unfortunately, we were not able to find any frogs today…maybe its due to our noisy progress down the boardwalks!?!
Finally at the ponds, the children were OFF! Several of our friends pretended to play “golf” with sticks and rocks in the stream flowing away from the water. Some children were making shadows in the water and looking for fish or turtles. A huge clump of algae was discovered and this entertained the children for the remainder of class!
Irvine’s Headwaters
Today we got a slow start! Several of our friends were away and everyone was feeling the change in dynamics! We pulled out some wood cookies and had some challenges for the children. We asked them to stack as high as they could on different surfaces. What made the best base? One friend recreated our band session from previous weeks and added a microphone to his stack. He then proceeded to sing us some songs.
Finally we collected our gear and headed out of the Glen. We started by making our way through the woodland garden looking for signs of new growth! Several of our friends yelled “Observation” when they spotted some green emerging! One of the last things we did before we left was to investigate a tree that had several faces on the bark…knobby chins, single eyes, and sunken cheeks!
At the “headwaters” for Irvine’s ponds, the children set off exploring the chilly stream. Several children went in search of mica on the stream bed. The shine as the sunlight reflected off the covered rocks quickly attracted a group. While we were looking for mica, snails and other macro-invertebrates were discovered! Perhaps the best find were some tadpoles hiding in the leaf litter at the bottom of the pools of water!
