zooming in on nature

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." 
L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

We started this session by reading The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer. We loved how the boy in this story created a whole forest in his bedroom so that he could care for the salamander that he found. He even took off the ceiling so that insects and birds could fly in and out! We all agreed that we'd love to have a bedroom like that.

Then we each went to find a quiet spot to listen, look, write, draw, or just think.

We gathered together and looked up at the trees. Do you remember what they looked like in this same spot 2 weeks ago? Here's what it looked like this week: 

We looked at a book with no words called Looking Down by Steve Jenkins. The book starts with a picture of the whole world, and each picture gets zoomed in more and more until on the last page, you're looking at a tiny ladybug. 

We got to work making stick frames to frame a little piece of nature. We experimented with various ways of tying knots to secure the four sticks together. 

Each person or group found a spot where they wanted to place their frame to zoom in on nature. They used their journals to document everything that they could see within that frame: colours, creatures, textures, plants.

Some started to build or create other mini-structures  and designs within the nature frame.

Time to explore!

Some critters we encountered:

Exploring time included some drawing and writing, including this poem that was shared at our closing circle time:

I see a salamander
here and there
there under logs and everywhere
sometimes in the pond
and sometimes in the leaves
You might get tricked with a newt!
They love to eat insects
and love to climb
I see a salamander
here and there
~ E.W.

Some others spent some time naming and mapping parts of the marshy area (which they named The Liberty of Swamp Marsh, or The Never-Ending Swamp):

• The Un-Trusted Tree
• Fainty Tree (very weak)
• Not Helpful! (very weak tree)
• Lake of Not Shining Waters (dark water)
• Revenge of the Swamp (pirate ship thingy)
• Penzance Bay (behind the roots of the ship)
• Gulper Field (quick mud and tiny grasses)
• Mermaid Cave

~ Z.S. & N.B.

Thanks, Wild Turkeys, for another great time together! 

For further investigation, here are some interesting posts and videos about salamanders:

National Geographic video
National Geographic webpage about spotted salamanders 
San Diego Zoo page about salamanders and newts