We opened with a brief discussion of shelter: which animals shelter, what do their shelters look like, and why do they take shelter. Then we marched to the edge of the woods to construct our own shelter using a couple
Nature Study: Poem Hike
Today, we had two objectives. First: memorize a poem. And second: make it to this river everyone’s talking about! (The kids had all been before, of course, but I hadn’t.) The chosen poem was “Cold”, by Shirley Hughes. We read
Nature Study: Foxes & Stars
We started (as we often do) with some coloring during readaloud. Today it was Little Fox in the Snow by Jonathan London, illustrated by Daniel Miyares. This is a neat, poetic book that does “day in the life of an animal” better
Nature Study: Hibernation
We introduced the theme of hibernation by reading Philip C. Stead’s Bear Has a Story to Tell. The group did some coloring while I read, and afterwards we discussed the picture: the animals it showed, how they were coping with winter, and
Nature Study: Birdsong
We began with a brief discussion of the Mohawk people, and then read a Mohawk story: Sacred Song of the Hermit Thrush, by Tehanetorens. It’s the story of how each bird got its song, the hermit thrush winning the loveliest
Nature Study: Kingfishers
To introduce today’s theme of migration, we talked about this poor bird and what it demonstrated. Looking at a globe, we discussed where such storks migrate and what reasons they might have for doing so. Next (while coloring in an image of a kingfisher)

