Welcome to SNOWvember, the month where our nature kindergarteners get ready for winter and help our animal friends do the same.
This week, the class began working with snowshoes. They were naturals! They listened intently to instruction, gave it a whirl, and successfully strapped on the snowshoes. Next week, we take it to the outdoor classroom for some grass practice.
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| Snowshoe Champion |
We also worked on our first (of many) bird feeder creations. While we work with a variety of types of feeders, our toilet paper roll seed feeders will be a staple.
Once our feeders were ready, we read Denise Fleming' Time to Sleep before heading outside to check in on our mouse houses. The class made some enticing houses as many were definitely visited. In fact, we might have even been host to a few animal parties based on our observations, Some mouse houses were relocated, some were repaired, and others were replaced. We added some more seed and corn and moved on to placing our seed feeders and checking out our pumpkins.
The class took their feeder creations and spread them out throughout our wooded area. In the process, I also asked that they check out pumpkins. They noticed a few things. The whole pumpkins seemed untouched. The one we smashed were "cleaned" out and no matter where we looked, we couldn't find any pumpkin seeds. This brought out some interesting discussion and predictions about what happened. To celebrate our findings, we created a "cornkin," filling a jack o' lantern with corn.
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| One student's "Mouse House city" |
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| Our "Cornkin" |
It was now time to play. :) We worked on or "tree skyscraper,"
found mole holes, burrs, and boulders,
scaled the "inside tree,"
made our very own collections of nature,
and tried to hide from the teacher off trail.
As we usually do, we then met together at our grass class and shared our morning adventures with a classmate.
In the afternoon, we took out nature backpacks and Mouse House journals outside to add an entry about how our house had changed and what animal friends might have helped with that change.
Once again, we came back together to share our observations and entries.
Another day of learning and play in nature came to a beautiful conclusion.
