Today we played in the sunshine and noted just how thankful we are for the friends we have made at Rooted & Free!
The K-2 students had a fun morning of exploring today! We spotted some fun mushroom mycelium, interesting root structures, and evidence of some different animals like deer that live around camp as well as some crayfish in the creek. Today was also a wonderful day to think about things we are grateful for, including all of the exciting things we get to do and see at nature school! We can’t wait to see each other again after the fall break - December is just around the corner!
Our preschoolers spent the morning thinking about things we are thankful for, and we realized there are so many of them! We started the day by checking on Pumpkin Jack, and then went to the sit spot. While we were there we worked on adding our leaf prints to our thankful trees, and then writing things we are thankful for onto the tree. Then we got to enjoy some sunshine in the field before finishing up the day at the play space. We enjoyed lots of smiles, games, and whistling together this morning, and we are so grateful that we got this day together!
What an incredible morning at Forest Friday - we got to enjoy the first snow of the season together! Everyone bundled up and spent some time at the fire at the pavilion while also getting to watch the snowflakes falling. We also read a story together about animals experiencing the first snow of the season! Then we spent some time at the field playing Gaga ball, using the parachute, and getting a little bit muddy. We had a great time in the crisp morning, and hope to see some more snow this winter, too!
Our Friday Preschoolers celebrated the first snow fall with a lot of muddy adventures and play. After warming up and enjoying a snack and book in one of our cabins, the class adventured out to create a new shelter for us to explore, build and decorate through out the season.
Our K-2 students bundled up in hats, mittens, and coats this morning as we explored how things decompose! We got to enjoy the play space alongside the preschool class for a bit before we read a book that explored all of the living creatures that use a rotting log for food, growth, and shelter. Then we worked on looking for evidence of life in rotting logs around us, too! We spotted holes created by insects and birds, things like moss and fungi growing on rotting logs, and cavities that are likely used by other animals for shelter! Finally we finished up by checking out the log we have been observing together and identifying potential changes from the cold and rain - there have been so many interesting things spotted and recorded in our nature journals!
Today our pre-k class enjoyed some more time at our nature play space climbing, and making things. A lot of our friends took rides on the wagon, too. We also got to enjoy time in our play cabin, and we used paint to decorate leaves and sticks for a Thankful Tree we will put together next week. It was a busy day!
Pumpkin seeds, play dough, pinecones, and more! The preschoolers had so much fun using natural materials in their play dough creations and doing some counting with pumpkin seeds. Then we collected sticks for a thankfulness project we will be working on together soon, and spent some time painting them and making leaf prints, too! We also celebrated a birthday and read a story together that we all enjoyed - it was a wonderful morning all around!
Today our K-2 students worked on an animal classification challenge! After starting our morning building some structures in the play space, we journeyed to the treehouse. While we were there we reviewed the different animal classifications that we have talked about and thought of some examples for each one. Then we read a book that told us different foods that an animal likes to eat, and we worked together to try and guess what the animal might be and what it is classified as! It was a fun challenge, and we realized there are lots of ways that animals can be similar or different from one another!
Pumpkin donuts! Today our Pre-K class continued looking at pumpkins. We observed Pumpkin Jack for changes, read another fun pumpkin book, and measured, mixed, and baked pumpkin donuts which we got to enjoy after snack. We finished our day at the nature play space where the K-2 class had built a structure the younger kids decided was a home. They spent their time readying their home for a hurricane, which involved lots of hammering on the structure and telling everyone to Get ready! Free time today was full of lots of giggles, jokes, and playing cooperatively in big groups!
We can’t get enough of exploring how amazing pumpkins are at nature preschool! This morning we spent some time talking about the different parts of a pumpkin, which we have been able to observe up close over our past few classes. The flesh of the pumpkin was important today because we used it to make our own pumpkin donuts! Everyone got to help scoop, measure, and add ingredients to the bowls to make the batter. After it was piped into the baking sheets, we wished them good luck as they headed into the oven! Finally, we got to give them a taste test all together after they had finished baking and cooled off. They were gone before we knew it and earned lots of thumbs-ups from us all!
Our last Monday Explore Together for the Fall was a wonderful time together! We read "Bear SaysThanks" by Karma Wilson. We had a special pretend feast of our own using the parachute as our picnic blanket! We are grateful for our fun Fall together and for all our little explorers!
Our preschoolers had a big adventure today. We started by reading The Bold Pumpkin Plan and followed the sequence of our story to find our handmade creatures at turtle rock (a new destination for this class!). We created a variety habitats for our creatures to shelter our creatures. Some of our bold plans were camouflaged homes of leaves, some had a roof of sticks and branches and some found safety near big logs or rocks.
Our Forest Friday class enjoyed lots of time exploring our Hundred Acre Woods this morning! The morning started with some fun games of tag and gaga ball, and we also read a story about decomposition and how important it is to ecosystems. We also spent lots of time using some new materials in our play space, including some gourds, a new mud kitchen, and some mallets! This group of students always proves to have so much creativity in their exploring and play!
Our K-2 class had a morning full of leaf throwing fun! After exploring the play space we spent some time reading a silly story together. We also played some field games, which also helped us run around and warm up our bodies in the cool morning air! Finally, we travelled to our observation log to see what changes we could observe. There were lots of interesting things that the class noted, like the texture and color of the chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms that had changed!
Today was a cold, chilly day, so Ms. Sally took a moment to talk about adapting our coats to open or to closed zippers as our bodies get too warm or cold. We made our own hedgehogs using pine cones and yarn. We enjoyed running, reading, and snacking at the field. Then, we took our hedgehogs to Turtle Rock where we constructed homes for them. This week we learned that hedgehogs make a new home every year, so it was fun to make special homes for our little pine cone friends!
Thursday was our final Explore Together of the fall season and cooler weather meant it finally felt like fall! We warmed up our bodies by playing with the parachute together, then we read Bear Says Thanks and used playdough and nature treasures to make a feast. Of course we had to spend plenty of time at the nature playspace as well —we found pumpkins and corn there to add to our play. It’s been such a fun season getting to know this crew!
Hedgehogs hiding in the woods! That’s what our nature preschoolers explored today - making hedgehog friends and giving them a home! We read “A Bold Pumpkin Plan” this week, which inspired us to create our own hedgehog friends out of pinecones and yarn. Then we visited Turtle Rock to find a perfect spot to create a home for our new hedgehog friends! We had so much fun working together to create cozy and protective homes using materials found in nature.
Our last Wednesday Explore Together for the Fall was spent on a favorite topic: seeds! We read "The Dandelion Seed" by Joseph Anthony. Then we made a seed picture with seeds! Of course we ended our time together at the nature play space one last time. It was a great Fall together!
Today, our Pre-K class enjoyed a fun book about a Hedgehog making a pumpkin home. Then we carried corn stalks to the nature play space where friends got to play in our mud kitchen, climb logs, and use our hammocks. We finished our day with more pumpkin time: this time we go to use wooden mallets to hammer in golf tees, and weave and twisted colorful yarn onto our pumpkins!
