Natural Ornaments

The older boys and I went to Natural Ornaments at Ox Bow Park. While waiting for people to show up, the boys got out my new binoculars and watched the birds out the window--it's a great place to see birds in the winter. We enjoyed seeing the chickadees and cardinals.

They made some glittery, recycled ornaments and pinecone critter ornaments.

We ended with hot chocolate and delicious popcorn balls! We had a good time and our taste buds were appreciative, but I missed the added informational value and time outside in this program. 

Nature Related Christmas Books

I'm getting ready for our next nature preschool time. This week we'll have a holiday party, so I thought I'd pull out nature related Christmas books for our story time. I just posted a couple of books we used for natural gifts. These both were perfect for the topic.

I also found a few others for this next week. I love that Counting to Christmas focuses on animals that we might find in our area. It is not religious and doesn't focus on the commercial side of the holiday, though Santa is briefly mentioned in a letter. The girl spends the days counting to Christmas through a homemade holiday, with an animal advent calendar, making ornaments and cards, baking, wrapping presents, stringing popcorn garlands, singing and play, and making treats for the animals. She decorates a tree inside with animals and decorates a tree outside with food for the animals. At the end, the animals come to enjoy the tree together.

Bear Stays Up for Christmas is another book with animals that might be found around here. The animals wake up Bear so he can enjoy the Christmas festivities. He helps bring in the tree. They make food and enjoy each others company. Santa makes an appearance and the friends share presents until Bear receives a quilt and finally falls asleep. The story line is very unrealistic but it might be used to talk about hibernation, habitats, and fact versus fiction. It would combine well with a non-fiction book on one or some of the animals.

In One Snowy Night, Hedgehog receives a present of a hat. It is too big and he shares the hat with another animal. In this circular story, the Hedgehog finally uses the hat to stay warm. This book uses animals in our area and also could be used to talk about hibernation and what animals do in the winter, though the story line itself is not typical of animals.

My 3-year-old son really likes Ten Christmas Lights. The animals seem more like zoo animals and they are doing very unrealistic things; however, it's great for counting and he likes how the tree actually lights up.

Here are a few Jan Brett books I like for this time of the year, too. While they are not focused on nature in our area necessarily, I love how she puts so many realistic details in her illustrations. I really like how she portrays winter and has "side" stories in many of her books. Gingerbread Friends even has a recipe running through the book. Of course, the boys are asking to make cookies now! Merry Christmas

Nurturing Acorns--Natural Gifts

Each week, Nurturing Acorns at Woodlawn Nature Center has a different theme. Several moms collaborate for a natural preschool experience. We start with letter work, work on a craft, have story and song time, eat a related edible craft, hit the trails at Woodlawn Nature Center, and return for sensory play.

This week our theme was Natural Gifts. We used glitter and glue to explore the letter G for gifts.

                        

We read a couple of books, Snow Tree and Night Tree, which helped explore the colors and gifts of nature to decorate a tree and a family that goes on a hike each year to decorate a tree for the animals. Since there was snow out, we had to sing Once There Was a Snowman.

It was great to have snow on our hike--this provided such a different level of interest as we explored. We found ice crystal, made snowballs, and watched the snow glisten in the sun. We checked the oat cereal feeders we left for the birds out on the trail last week. One was left untouched. Holes are always interesting to find and explore.

Back inside, we made several natural gifts. You can't do something like this without decorated pinecones, right? Some children left their feeders at the nature center while others brought their feeders home. Our feeder is hanging outside our front window, but appears to be untouched!

We made salt dough ornaments. Here you see moms and children working, learning, playing, and exploring together, which is a basic structure of the group.

These trees will look great on our tree at home, especially since they were made by one of our own.

We also decorated twig stars.

A favorite activity each week is the sensory bin. It always has rotating items to pour, scoop, and touch.

There are a few openings for the session running from January-March. For more information, visit Woodlawn Nature Center. 

Nature's Playground

Scat . . . it's what it's all about! After hearing of the tragic events in Connecticut this afternoon and realizing we had great weather, I decided to take my boys out for a hike. As my preschool aged son started lagging behind, I encouraged him with the thought of finding some scat. Certainly enough, we did, but I think it was from dogs walking the area. Later his older brother found this scat we had to capture on digital pixels! Lesson learned--looking for scat can give me more hiking time! Let's go find some scat!

There were so many interesting textures out today. We took advantage of the warmer weather and died back plants (read--not as much poison ivy!!) and did a little bushwhacking. The snow added another lovely sensory element to our exploration time.

Seriously, nature's jungle gym! There are several areas with large downed trees that are perfect for climbing on. The boys find holes and see plants growing on the trees. I've been hearing more about sensory play for children . . . we experienced so many textures, sights, colors, sounds in our hike!

We also found animal tracks!

And animal remains . . . they thought it interesting that there was still fur by the hoof. We actually took a hike out here last January on a nice day and found a dead deer as well. This isn't the same one; however, we did find the other, covered with even more sticks, yet we could find some of the bones.

More textures . . . I always tell one of my boys his eyes are the color of moss (greenish brown). As he found moss today, he asked, "Mom, are my eyes this color?" Aww . . .

More climbing places and gorgeous skies . . .

More hiding places . . . there was litter though. Need to add plastic bags to the great bag my husband just got me so it's easier to pick up litter when we're out.

More textures . . .

We found many fuzzy branches early in our hike, which are most likely from the Staghorn Sumac near the entrance of Lieber Nature Preserve. Did you know you can make tea with it? We might have to try that next year if we find a good source that is not protected. My son still talks about the natural tea he had through the Elkhart County Parks programs. 

Science Fair Judging

I helped judge a local Science Fair this week. It was really nice working with others interested in science and interacting with the students. Many of the projects were REALLY good--we have budding scientists on our hands! Some projects could use a mentoring partnership. Do you know of any programs to help with science projects in the area? Maybe that would be a good project next November. A little interaction and talking a student through the process could be just what is needed to spark that interest in science. I especially liked the projects that had an application to real life. Some helped question advertising claims. It was great to see well thought out projects that used a scientific process to test a hypothesis. I know now which gum will last the longest, which batteries I should buy, and which paper towels are going to work well. Also, I know there are many cleaner pennies out there! Hot sauce and ketchup worked well for cleaning pennies!

Have you ever thought of helping judge science fairs? Most schools could use the help and it's an interesting process! Consider volunteering a bit of your time.

Judges deliberating . . . decisions were hard. I stayed out of that process for a couple of the grades.

Science Fair Projects

We've been finishing up Science Fair Projects at our house . . .

One wanted to see how sprouts were affected by various liquids. He did NOT like tasting the vinegar soaked mung beans which never sprouted. Wonder if you could make flavored beans? Hmm . . . these experiments always leave me with more questions! Do you sprout? I feel a new post coming on. It was interesting to see how it took much longer it took for the beans soaked/rinsed in Kool-Aid and Sprite to sprout--wonder what that does to our bodies?

The other wanted to explore better techniques for kicking soccer balls. This was his amended trial after he realized there were maybe too many variables which were hard to regulate.

When you're approaching nature, do you experiment, form hypotheses, record and analyze results? What have you noted? I'd love to hear about it.

Rise Up Farms

A friend recently went out of town and let us have her CSA share from Rise Up Farms. This is a unique, permaculture minded CSA right on East Jackson street as you head into Elkhart. I was very impressed by the whole experience. Our family has participated in CSAs a few different times. I liked the variety of vegetables and the challenge to try new foods. A favorite in a past CSA was purslane, which is usually considered a weed.

I was pleasantly surprised by the share from Rise Up Farms. I liked how we each bagged our own and the coop used rocks with chalk to label the products. There were brussel sprouts, turnips, sweet potatoes, potatoes, swiss chard, collard greens, red cabbage, onions, an herb, carrots, leeks, bok choi, etc. What an assortment! And BREAD. Not grocery store bread with a twist tie on the end, but BREAD. This freshly made loaf reminded me of getting breakfast in small German towns with castles--hearty, chewy bread with lots of textures and grains. This is my kind of bread and I've missed it so!

The veggies did have a minor amount of dirt on them, which is different from many sold in the stores. However, knowing where they were grown, who grew them, and that the vegetables traveled just a short distance made up for this. They were easy to wash up.

The first dish I made was a simple pan of roasted veggies. What a delight to cut the potatoes and find pinks and purples inside! 

I tossed the cut veggies with olive oil and Happy Salt from a place out in Shipshewana.

Goodness! The brussel sprouts were yummy in it. 

I've met a few people associated with Rise Up Farms on a wild edibles hike and other places. They were friendly, young, helpful, compassionate, and energetic. Great people to support! 

Do you use CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture)? What local places have you found for veggies? What are your tips for using all the food each week?