Through Nature's Eyes

When we’re out in nature, we often tend to look at things through our own eyes and make decisions based on what we want or need, at times forgetting that we are just one part of the web of life. What if the web belongs to a spider who has spent all night weaving it but the web is now blocking the trail we want to use? If we get a stick and break the web, we’ll be able to stay on the trail but at what cost to the spider? These are the kinds of questions we were asking today as we tried to figure out how other creatures see the world.

Because spiders are known to be hiders, we practiced our skills of searching and finding. Were you able to find Little Beaver without any help? Where was your nature name rock hiding? One rock in particular was hard to find. Whose was it and where was it found?

What a surprise the crayfish who live in the stream behind the mill must have had today! What do you think they were thinking when you scooped them up in your nets or even worse, when they found themselves being touched by a human?

In the book called “Diary of a Spider”, we got to see the world through the eyes of a fictional spider. What did the spider in the story use some of our small objects like pencils, lego blocks, corks, and a pop can? Can you remember the 3 things this spider was most scared of? (Daddy Longlegs, vacuums, and people with big what?)

What did you learn about real spiders today? Think about what makes a spider a spider, the different types of spiders, and where we can find them.

Although spiders prefer to be hiders, we made lots of discoveries today. Use the photos to talk about some of the other things we found or did.

It's always great to end our day by using our nature notebooks to record what we did and discovered. Today you learned that if we take the time to look at the world through the eyes of nature you'll be able to figure out how to become better caretakers of nature.

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