Saplings w/o 7/15

Hello wBees Families,
 
We had another wonderful week outside. This week we learned about animal habitats and how humans can impact them!
 
On Monday, we learned about how different animals make their homes in trees. During our morning circle, we read a book about a tree that provided food, shade, and shelter to many different animals of the forest. As we played in our green space we made observations about the different animals we saw in the trees. We noticed caterpillars, birds, and squirrels. A big hit on Monday, and throughout the rest of the week, was making stinky soup with mud, sticks, and imaginary disgusting items (skunk spray, old socks, etc).
 
On Tuesday teacher Adrianna brought in doll house furniture and kiddos set up a beautiful caterpillar village. By the end of our time in the green space there were caterpillars crawling over every inch of the village. There was an especially rambunctious caterpillar that inspired a lot of silly squeals! Nicholas taught many of us how to play a new game, “What time is it, Mr. Fox?” Friends played that in both the green space and on the playground! We also collected twigs, leaves, and other materials for building bird nests. We started noticing that as we looked around for nest materials we were also finding many pieces of plastic that humans had left behind.
 
Wednesday was our hottest day of the week and we got creative. Some friends filled up buckets of water and dumped them down the slide on the playground as they slid down to create a DIY water slide. Brilliant! We spent a lot of time running through the sprinklers on Wednesday and chugging water! Inside we learned about animals that create homes underground by reading Mama Dug A Little Den. Afterwards we created a group art project. Each child drew a burrowing animal in our shared burrow mural. Some friends chose to do research about their burrowing animal so they could make it more realistic. Axel researched what hedgehogs ate so that he could draw his with a tasty meal in its burrow. We learned that hedgehogs eat snails!
 
Thursday was a wonderful rainy day! We got to start the day in a new space and splash around in puddles and the rain. As it started to clear up we spent a lot of time playing a new favorite game, Red Rover! Teacher Sara showed us how to mix water and chalk to make beautiful pastel paint! We noticed that birds had built nests in the pavilion. We also noticed that humans had their left their marks in the green space behind the pavilion with a lot of plastic trash. Campers were wondering what to do about it so we started learning about Leave No Trace principles, starting with properly disposing of waste. Friends did a great job leaving no trace in all the spaces we were in for the rest of the week!
 
On Friday we were back to our regular routine and because of the rain we finally found some worms! The worms were very treasured and joined the caterpillars in the caterpillar village. Some friends created eye patches out of paper, grass, and crayons. Friends also got creative with methods to cool down and ran to the sprinklers to get their bottoms wet and then went down the slide!
 
We are so excited for another wonderful week outside!