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: River Walk
Today, we walked down to the river. We discussed a variety of things, like how erosion caused the riverside to be steep on one side and how the river can sometimes get so high it floods the nearby road. We
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: Four Senses Nature Walk
Last week we had a fun exploratory nature walk — we stopped several times and checked our 4 senses (we left out “taste” since we established no one in our group is a wild mushroom or berry expert). In addition to stopping
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: Collecting & Owl Pellet
This week, as all weeks, we had a rough plan but the best part was unscripted! The plan was for a nature walk where the kids collected at least 20 items into their own individual bags, then later sorted their items based
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: When Winter Comes
The Neutrons and I talked about animals they might see on a local nature walk and about what happens to these animals during the wintertime. We discussed migration, hibernation, and adaptation, and evaluated how each of the animals we listed
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)
Nature Study: Soil, a.k.a. Dirt
Today the Neutrons discussed soil (otherwise known as dirt). We read a book about the different layers of soil and were excited to discuss what “animal matter” might mean. Then we walked a portion of a new-to-us trail and dug