Winter Is On It’s Way!

The Nature Preschool is looking ahead to winter! We have been exploring the changing forest and preparing for cold blustery days that lie ahead! We learned last week several woodland creatures are busy scurrying about collecting food to store for winter! We decided to help out by making fruit feeders! We used needles and thread to string fruits and cereal and then hung them in the trees! The children were excited when, a few days later, we discovered half eaten feeders and fruits that had been scattered on the forest floor! We tried to imagine which kind of animals could have tampered with them! Birds? Racoons? Maybe a squirrel! That question sparked so much curiosity and all the children were on the hunt clues! We kept our eyes peeled and some of our favorite discoveries were finding several different types of scat! We tried to guess which animals could have left that scat behind! Deer, goose, and rabbit scat looks very different and the children helped us make some comparisons!  The wetlands trail is a perfect place to find clues! The mucky mud had many tracks for us to explore!

Some days this week the trails had to be closed due to high winds! Extra time inside gave us opportunities to explore in the warmth! We loved using the dancing scarves! One our favorite songs is “Slow and Fast”. You practice moving as slow as a snails that slide by and clouds that drift in the sky! Suddenly you must move as quickly as a rabbits racing or foxes chasing! You can only imagine the giggles that follow! Introducing the children to rhythm sticks was so much fun! They practiced catching a beat and recreating the patterns of a woodpecker! We also created stories using shadow puppets and a light box! The children had so much fun we have decided to try out some more story telling and reenacting next week! If your child has a favorite story they would like to share, please feel free to bring it in for some role-playing fun!