The Rhythm of Land and Sky

Will our beaver dam hold back the water?

A cycle is a series of repeating events and there are many examples found in nature. Some cycles that we came up with were seasons, plants, water, as well as the life cycle of insects. In honour of the incredible Beaver Supermoon this week, we spent the day celebrating the moon and its phases. Look through the photos below and talk to your family about some of the things you learned about the moon.

A calendar is also an example of something that is a cycle. It was interesting to learn how the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples actually created their own lunar calendar based on the full moons. What did they use as their calendar? Share the legend of Sky Woman to help explain why the turtle was such an important creature to them and why she is also called ‘Grandmother Moon’.

In library, Grey Squirrel read “The Legend of the Three Sisters” which explains how the 3 plants - corn, beans, and squash help each other grow. What was the message or lesson from this story? If you haven’t shown today's craft to your family, dig it out of your backpack and explain how you made it.

Instead of being Herons all day long, you transformed yourselves into beavers too.

After learning more about these hard-working animals and the positive ways their dams help the environment, we decided to build our own mini-dams. What materials did you use and how did you design your dam? Was your dam able to keep water from reaching the other side? What might you do differently the next time?

Collecting materials for our models of a beaver dam

Careful consideration of how to build our dams

Testing our designs

We learned a lot about both the sky and the land today. Which activities or games did you learn the most from and which ones would you like to do again some time?

A big thank you goes out to our wonderful volunteers, Tamarack and Raccoon who help keep our day running smoothly. See if you can think of something they did or said that helped make your day even better.