An "Egg"cellent Jump Into Spring

2 days ago
3 min read

Leopard Frog makes an "egg"cellent chef!

Welcome back everyone! The Turtles got right back into action upon arriving inside the hall. So nice to see all the smiling faces following routines, talking with friends and experiencing the sights, smells and sounds of Spring at Harrington! What kinds of animals might we find this spring? Using our creativity some students created animals out of egg cartons, pom poms and pipe cleaners others painted rocks to look like eggs. Pin Cherry created a dragonfly to help remember her first day back at Coyote Nature School. Blue Jay and Deer painted wavy lines on their rocks to make a colourful egg.

Our morning affirmation was led by Hawk and everyone joined in to recite it together. We sprang into action by brainstorming goals for Spring Session. Snapping Turtle told the group that a goal is something you would like to accomplish and that you set a time frame in which to do this. In small groups, the Turtles did just that! Learning about flowers and plants? Building ladders and a tree house or a boat? What is your goal for the Spring Session at Coyote Nature School? Share with your family!

Hearing and listening to each other is important as well as hearing and listening to the natural world around us. Dragonfly helped us warm up our sense of hearing. We needed all our senses as we ventured out to identify the birds on our clipboard. Do you remember which birds we saw? Did you see more birds or hear more birds? Today, we used an App called Merlin Bird ID. With the help of the App (which listens to the birds), we were able to find a total of 13 different types of birds. Can you remember the names of five of them?

Out came the buckets and magnifying glasses! Time to find other signs of Spring! Mud, moss, lichen, seeds, scat and chewed up corn cobs were the top finds for some of us. What animal loves lichen? Ask Leopard Frog next week if you forgot. What did Cardinal call moss, one of her favourite plants?

The mud kitchen was a busy place using some of our finds to make some delicious nature meals! Thanks to Cardinal for reading the book "Spring for Sophie" by Yael Werber. Do you remember one of the things Sophie was paying extra attention to so she could tell it was spring?

Oh no! Our brave little Black Bear had an encounter with a tricky branch. Dragonfly showed us how to work together as a team to make sure we are ready for those bouncy, sharp branches that pop out as we walk down the trails. Safety first by making sure you and the person behind you are ready for the branch! Hope you are feeling better Black Bear!

Thank you to Grey Squirrel for welcoming us back to Harrington Library with a story called “How to Hatch” by Sara Holly Ackerman and bonus she had a rainbow scavenger hunt too! We were happy to be able to check out books with you again!

Looking up in the sky we could see and hear many busy birds getting ready to lay their eggs. Those weren’t the only eggs needing some attention. Butterfly Hill was the centre of an “egg”stravaganza! What strategy did you use to get to the finish line in the egg and spoon race? Was it easier when you were working with a partner?

Just walking beside the water of Harrington Pond(which is low right now) we were able to see small animals moving around in the water and we caught a few with our bare hands. What was the name of that worm? We also tried to skip some rocks on the water. What did we do with the walnuts? Did they float or sink?

Before leaving Butterfly Hill it was time to explore, find more signs of Spring and to see how our tree friends were doing. Bobcat and Pin Cherry worked together to build a little fort beside Bobcat’s tree. How did you feel, Snapping Turtle, when you saw that your tree friend had lost so many branches? Hawk moved some branches around to make a nice place to rest. It was good to see everyone working together to move some things around. How have our tree friends changed? Some of us noticed all the buds coming out already. Time to be patient and observant!