Today, we read Elizabeth’s very cool books about how snowflakes are made, a book with magnified photographs of snowflakes, and a biography of “Snowflake Man” Wilson Bentley. Then the kids cut out their own paper snowflakes. There were so many
Nature Study: Birdfeeders & Trails
This week the Neutrons very enthusiastically made natural birdfeeders from pine cones, Crisco and bird seed. We had a discussion about what characteristics of birds we can use to identify various species, and a more practical conversation about where everyone
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: 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