Rain, rain, please don’t go away so we have puddles where we can splash and play!

For the first time ever, we began our day…

Welcome back to another fun fall day in the life of a Knee High Naturalist!

Our last two weeks together were so much fun!

We had a great last couple of weeks together! Our second to last week was special because Ms. Rachel S. got to lead our class for the first hour.

We had the best last day together! We spent the entire morning enjoying the sunshine on Fox Den Trail.

Where did the sunshine go?! It was snowing during class this morning–we thought it was supposed to be spring! Despite the wintry weather, we noticed something extraordinary today…leaves are growing on our trees and bushes!

Last week was special! We enjoyed the summer-like weather and made the most of our two hours together.

Two weeks ago was extra special! Due to an awesome thunderstorm, we stayed inside for the entire class.

At the beginning of the month, we began predicting when we would see our frog and turtle friends again (we miss them greatly). Many of us were hopeful for a mid-April return from hibernation!

Ms. Paige asked us where the living things in these ecosystems get their energy. We replied, “their food!” So what do these critters eat? If they are carnivores, they eat other organisms. If they are herbivores, they only eat plants. If they eat both, they are omnivores. (Humans fall into this category, though some people might choose to be herbivores!) Then, we got to wondering… where do plants get their food?

We talked a bit about winged things today! We got a chance to pass around the bat skeleton from the Nature Center. We noticed that bats have bones that look like fingers, but they are really long and make up their wings. We also noted that bat wings look different from bird and butterfly wings because they are covered in skin rather than feathers or scales.

Now that it is spring, we hope to see frogs emerging around the Nature Center soon! Click this link to see and listen to common Michigan frogs. We will hear lots of bullfrogs and green frogs along our trails this spring and summer!

To get our minds in the zone, we brainstormed words that are associated with water - we all came up with some very creative responses. We zoomed out for a bit and observed how much water is on earth compared to land. By tossing the globe around to one another, it became a game.

We have had a couple great weeks together! On March 9th, we decided to enjoy the spring weather by hiking farther than usual–where Robbins’ Creek meets the Boardman River.

We have had a rockin’ couple of weeks spent together at the Nature Center!

We have had so much fun the past two Mondays! The spring-ish weather seems to avoid us when we are together, but we do not let the cold and clouds stop us from exploring.

By the frog boardwalk, we noticed a set of prints that looked almost like mini human hands. At first glance, we thought they might belong to a raccoon, but after researching a bit further, they could be opossum tracks–notice how they are placed one after another rather than side by side.

We learned that some animals live in a special world beneath the snow–one full of tunnels and burrows and that the snow acts like a blanket to keep the animals warm. We discovered that some small animals can be beneath our feet, under the snow, as we play on top!

We also listened to the book About Birds: A Guide for Children by Cathryn Sill. It taught us all about characteristics of birds, including what they look like and where and how they live. It showed a neat picture of different types of bird beaks and sources of food, which led right into our activity outside at the pavilion.