October Town Forest Walk

Today was our first Town Forest walk! It was a beautiful fall day and we admired the leaves in all their different colors reflected in the stream. We took the kids on a long walk around much of the forest to orient them to different trails, areas and landmarks. Along the way, we saw some dabbling ducks and some gnawed branches with bundles of green leaves still attached. The kids learned that this is the work of hungry squirrels who nibble down the twig portion of the branch before dropping the leaf bundle. In a year of such drought and low acorn supplies, we can see why they have to scrounge! We also got to display some kid art work in the Town Forest Kiosk to educate other forest walkers about the importance of milkweed, the life cycle of monarch butterflies, how seeds get around and invasive plants to watch out for!

Close Encounters with Nature

This week, the students worked in small groups to dissect a flower and label its parts based on a diagram we had studied earlier.  Your child is building a vocabulary of flower parts which they demonstrated in their "live" diagram including petal, stalk, sepal, anther, stigma and some groups included a bonus! It is not an expectation that your child be able to reel off these scientific names as most adults cannot. We wanted to introduce them to the accurate plant parts.

Also this week we saw one of our monarchs emerge from its chrysalis! It was very exciting to see it crawl out of the chrysalis and watch its wings slowly fill and harden. We released it this afternoon in our butterfly garden with well wishes for a safe migration to Mexico!

Free Friday

Your child may have told you about a Free Friday experience in the Outdoor Classroom. Today was just such an occasion. It is a chance for the students to enjoy and explore the outdoor space they take such care to maintain and learn in.  It is also a place where we encourage children to take a risk - climb a steep slope or a tree, move large branches with a team to construct a fort, create a new path through the trees, or engage in exploration of rocks and sticks, plants and fungi.  All of these experiences help your child learn a lot about the world around him/her and raises their comfort level being outdoors. There is a high level of imagination, cooperation, and exploration in the challenges they undertake, and they have a great deal of fun doing it.