Apple Harvest Festival 2019

Ever since Woodside Elementary has collaborated with the Retzer Nature Center, I have been happy to volunteer some time at one of their main events: the Apple Harvest Festival. Usually, I help support a reading tent by sharing stories for a half hour. This year, we upgraded to hosting an activity table for the guests.

I decided on using natural materials to create paintbrushes and decorate a bedsheet. I have wanted to try this with my nature kindergarten class but haven't done so. . .yet.

The calm before the storm (literally and figuratively) had my daughter and I set up our station. Embry even created some "test" brushes to use as examples.

Before long, the guests came. It was rewarding to see the smiles on their faces and the positive feedback from parents and visitors, even if the station was a bit messy.

The kid artists displayed wonderful creativity ion not only paintbrush design, but paint application, and painting style.

The table and bedsheets quickly became more and more colorful.

When Woodside's wonderful art teacher volunteered her time and gave us a break, we wandered the grounds. Embry looked for her favorite scarecrow on Scarecrow Lane. While she didn't choose Woodside's addition, she did enjoy the Daisy Girl Scout version, maybe because she was working hard as  volunteer today to earn her next petal.

She also went fishing,

listened to some awesome autumn stories,

transformed into a kitty,

and visited her favorite Retzer rock for a rock hop. She was treated with a root beer and caramel apple, but if you take a close look, you will see she focused her time and attention on caramel removal.

Upon returning to our station, it was apparent the time had come to work on a new canvas. While the bedsheets were creative and bright, the table full of brushes and splashes of paint really exhibited some amazing art.

When it was all said and done, two bedsheets full of color were created (and hopefully displayed within the nature center soon) and one little girl had an excellent day at an excellent festival.

Timberwolf Trail - Week 3 - 2019-20 Edition

We had an eventful week in nature kindergarten, kicking off with our first session of Trail Buddies. With a goal of getting kids from other grade levels out in nature on a more regular basis, I asked the other teachers to consider being Trail Buddies with my kindergartners. I was happy to connect with a fourth grade this week for an inaugural session.

My class led the older students on a color hunt around different parts of the trail.

It was a treasure seeing the kids working together to search for colors. In the end, we combined our color collections and compared our findings.

We also started a unit on Plant & Animal Needs. We connected this to our outdoor classroom trees, learning a chant and song about the needs and parts of trees and plants. Of course, we had to head outside and put our learning to the test.

We may have even played along the way.

We climbed trees,

acted as nature waitresses,

and found a "new to the class" trail and even worked to clean it with stick brooms.

A few friends even found some hitchhiker seeds.

We all found some turkeys and a few of us even noticed. . .

some signs of fall.

Eventually we got back to work and used tree and plant parts to create a tree on the ground. Using bark pieces, sticks, bunches of leaves, and goldenrod stems, we created the leaves, branches, trunk, and roots of a tree.

It took a bit longer than expected as woolly bears were noticed, observed, shared, and released.

In our indoor classroom, we focused on identifying the needs if a plant in order to select the best plant for us to take care of inside. We decided on a fern. With rhyme practice fresh in our minds, we aptly named him Vern the Fern.

I repeated the needs chant I created all week long, so hopefully it sticks in their heads as the unit and year progress.

On to this weekend's Apple Harvest Festival at the Retzer Nature Center. I am proud to volunteer my time to represent our school's outdoor learning programming at an activity table and with our kindergarten scarecrow. It was completely designed and created by the nature kindergartners.

Timberwolf Trail - Trail Camera Captures - First Half of September 2019 Edition

The first camera check of the school year brought in nearly 1,200 captures over just a few weeks. While deer (especially our two favorite fawns) dominated the captures, we had quite the variety, including quite possibly my favorite catch yet. Enjoy!

Raccoon

Squirrel Tag

Quite the look

Cooper's Hawk

Fawns

Chipmunk

Maybe the return of the Milwaukee Lion???

Looking for nuts

Cottontail

Opossum

Deer Ear

Double Blue Jays

Predator vs. Prey - The Circle of Life

The Monarch Trail

The family and I finally made it to the Monarch Trail for the first time. It definitely won't be the last.

This beautiful sanctuary hidden in a nook of the county grounds between new apartments and business developments offers a wonderful labyrinth of trails in various stages of restored prairie and woodlands.

The colors were fantastic and the butterflies were active. A slight drizzle and overcast skies may have scared away some, but a number of visitors came out to enjoy the monarchs as they prepare for their migration to Mexico.

It was kind of surreal to be watching a roost of monarchs just feet away from one of the busier stretches of Milwaukee's highway system.

The kids had a great time and it will be wonderful to put the Monarch Trail into our nature rotation.