We've had a great couple of weeks with our Salamanders group. During our first session, it was like nature was throwing down an amazing welcome mat for us. Here is what we spotted:
We were all pretty excited about these sightings. At our base camp, we worked on a hapa zome art project, where we used wildflowers we had collected to hammer their plant dyes onto fabric. Week #2, we focused on camouflage because of all of the creatures we had seen in week 1 who were hidden, or hard to see at first. We read How to Hide A Butterfly by Ruth Heller, then played a game where we had to find hidden pieces of coloured paper in the grass. Forty pieces had been hidden, and when we gathered, we came up with some theories based on what colours we found most of: red and blue were the easiest to find; green was the hardest. Then we were off, clipboards and pencils in hand, to see what we could find that was hidden in the meadow grasses and in the woods: swirly snails, milkweed beetles, and a salamander peeking out (do you see its little eyes at the left of the picture?) and some salamander eggs suspended to the log. At our base camp, there was a lot of building with sticks. Some people created homes for insects, some created homes for squirrels, and some kept exploring under logs and in tiny holes to see what creatures might be living there. Near the end of our time together, we went to our quiet sit spots. Some of us just sat and listened and looked, and others drew or wrote in their nature journals. It was a beautiful day, and a nice way to end our time together in the forest.
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Our two Polliwogs groups (Monday AM, Thursday AM) have been learning about the pond this week! We started out with a story called Pond Walk by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. It's a wonderful picture book about a bear named Buddy who discovers creatures at the pond, then draws them in his nature journal and references his nature ID books. A perfect book for our walk! We went on our own Pond Walk to see what we could see. We saw:
We used nets to scoop up mud and plants from the pond and found different kinds of water bugs and water snails. Some children worked on identifying what kind of bugs we caught. On Thursday we found a lot of dragonfly nymphs at different stages. Did you know they live in the water for 6 years before emerging, hatching from their shell, and flying around as dragonflies?! Just like Buddy the bear in our story, some of us painted Turtle Rocks to take home with us. Everyone enjoyed the beautiful water and the creatures who live in and near it. A few of us also got wet feet, but it was worth it!
This fall, our Tuesday Tales and Trails program is exploring various Kitchener city parks. Our first week, we started at Breithaupt Park, our usual stomping grounds. This past week, we met at Monarch Woods Park, a beautiful gem at Victoria and Fischer-Hallman in Kitchener. Wonderful woods with squirrels and toads, a gurgling stream with minnows, and bridges, hills, and valleys. Here's a little peek at the park: Next week, we'll explore Lakeside Park in Kitchener. Feel free to join us!
One of my favourite things about our Kindergarten programs this spring has been to watch how loose parts are used by the various groups. It is truly amazing to see the multiplicity of permutations that can come from piles of materials used in different ways by different little brains and communities of imagination. Coined by architect Simon Nicholson in the 1970s, the theory of loose parts play claims that we are all creative and that loose parts in an environment will empower our creativity. During loose parts play, children are exploring possibilities, moving, carrying, manipulating, designing, combining, with no specific directions or outcome. We have an old bread baking pan with various natural items. These items are an invitation to create, design, and play. Look at some of the creations made from these materials! Snails and shells are popular items in their creations, and often end up being creatures or families of creatures. In the photos below, two girls are using sticks and branches to recreate the climbing structure that was behind them. Truly creative and observant! The Stick-lets and bamboo area is another popular area for budding builders. Children design 3-D shapes like pyramids, cubes, and rectangular prisms. But the most popular structure is a tent! From the play area, our use of loose parts extends into the forest. Planting gardens, designing art pieces, building pretend campfires, creating log cabins... the options are endless! "Kids really get to know the environment when they can dig it, beat it, swat it, lift it, join it, push it, combine different things with it. This is what adults call creative activity . . . a process of environment and imagination working together." ~ Robin Moore
It was a bit of a chilly, rainy-on-and-off afternoon for our Words in the (wet) Woods workshop. But a daring group braved the elements nonetheless, working with images and memories of trees in our past. Carrie Snyder, local author, led us through exercises to help us remember the significant trees in our lives. What trees do you remember? What memories, people, events are connected to those tree memories? Some of my list included: * the willow tree in our front yard of my childhood home * the pine tree by the water at Fraser Lake Camp * the apple tree at my grandparents' house * the apple tree at my childhood home * the catalpa tree in my backyard Some of our writing time was indoors, and some was outdoors in the woods near the pond at Huron Natural Area (this was my favourite time!). Thanks, Carrie, for an inspirational afternoon of writing in the woods!
Sarah Granskou, City of Kitchener's artist in residence for 2016, has generously offered her time to create, sing, and tell stories with some of our Nature Connect groups in the past weeks. She visited our Tales and Trails group at Breithaupt Park to sing and tell us a story. We sang along with the song that Sarah had written: "Every tree has a protector, and it's expected you'll respect her..." Then she joined us on our hike, looking for faces in the trees. Here's one that we found named Pinnochio: We also found several forest trolls hidden along the path. How did they get there? Where do they sleep at night? Do they protect the trees too? Then Sarah joined us at Huron Natural Area for a humid Saturday morning of puppet making. Here are some of the creations that emerged from the collective imaginations that morning. We also used hammers to do hapa zome, a Japanese artform that uses plants' natural dyes to imprint colour onto fabric. Some of these dyed fabric pieces were incorporated into our puppets' clothing. Thanks so much, Sarah, for gifting us with your creativity and inspiration!
The forest has held many adventures for our Nature Explorer group. This past week, we gave back to the forest by planting some native plants from Nith River Native Plants. Josh Shea, City of Kitchener's Natural Area Coordinator, told us about periwinkle - an invasive plant that likes to take over forest plants - and showed us how we could care for our forest by planting some native species.
The forest has nurtured us - here is one way that we can nurture the forest. We set off to plant! We love to get to the know the different creatures that share the land and water at Huron Natural Area. Sometimes we just watch them quietly, sometimes we carefully catch and observe them before letting them go, and sometimes we talk about whether to catch or whether to just watch. Our urge to catch is so strong! It seems to feed something primal within us... to have and to hold. Here is a tent caterpillar nest that we've been observing this spring. Watching, each week, as the caterpillars grow bigger and bigger in their nest. Each week brings new wonders: babies growing into teenagers, sunlight bringing out herds of turtles, rain and moisture revealing snail cities. Our play always leads us to the land, and as explorers, we have the amazing opportunity to observe and take in the growing and changing life that is all around us.
What a privilege! Here's what we were up to with our Thursday Polliwogs last week: some show and tell to start us off... Quite a variety of interesting nature things! L brought in some toad tadpoles, and showed us the life cycle of a frog/toad. G and C brought in a wasp apartment building and a nest with a broken egg. And I brought Tikki Tikki Tembo, our pet hedgehog. Then we set off to plant some flower seeds for the butterflies to enjoy this summer. Giselle read us a story about how seeds are spread - there are so many ways! Birds, squirrels, the wind, even animals' poop! :) Then we played The Seed Game and blew ourselves across the lawn on our way down to the pond. What could we see at the pond today? Then we were off to play in our forest play area. Lots of bugs were flying around today, baking yummy things in our big kitchen.
Our Dive Into Nature group was keen to explore the pond. So we donned our rubber boots, and set off for an adventure. We took a secret way through the woods, down a new path to our forest site - which meant crossing some water to get there. We helped each other across, and started to build a small bridge. On the way there, we passed the Hiding Tree. For some of us, it was quite an adventure to get through the water/quick-mud! But we made it! Then we did some exploring of the water and the creatures that live there. We found frogs, a minnow, pond snails, a mallard duck, red-winged blackbirds, and even a cute little jumping deer mouse (not in the water, but in the cattail area by the creek). Some of us kept on building the shelter that has been developing over the weeks - with intricately laid sticks, bark, and leaves to cover it.
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Read on...Hammers, Huge Swings, and the Freedom to Play Archives
April 2020
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