Stream Searchin’

This Week’s Adventures: We searched aquatic places all over Irvine’s grounds and also took a family field trip to the Hammerman Beach area of the Gunpowder River where it meets the Chesapeake Bay.

Favorite Activities: We loved roaming the wet woods and stream. We caught frogs, crayfish and lots of other invertebrates in the stream and vernal pools.

Next’s Week’s Theme: Salutations and Songs

Try this at home: With an adult, pick up trash near your home, along the street you live on, or in a local park. Trash can wash into waterways which isn’t healthy for the creatures that live there!

May Flowers

This Week’s Adventures: We discovered the amazing lives of insects and their relationship to flowers in Spring.

Favorite Activities: We pretended to pollinate flowers like bees and slurped applesauce with a butterfly proboscis tongue (straw!). We searched for flowers along the trail and grouped them by number of petals and by color. We used sweep nets in the meadow to find small critters and classified them as insects or arachnids. We also made special gifts to honor our mothers.

Next’s Week’s Theme: Stream Searchin’

Try this at home: Note how many flowers you can find during a walk with family. Where else can you grow more flowers to help the bees?

All a-Flutter

This Week’s Adventures: We became birds!

Favorite Activities: We loved making our wings and testing them out in the meadow. We made binoculars to observe our feathered friends and turned wicker baskets into birdhouses that we placed along the trail. We practiced writing the letter B for birds and drew bird pictures in our nature journals. We even ate snack with tongs to see how tricky it would be to eat with a tiny beak!

Next’s Week’s Theme: May Flowers (“Ii”)

Try this at home: Fill a recycled clear plastic blueberry or strawberry container with scraps of yarn and hang it for the birds to use as nesting material.

In Our Garden

This Week’s Adventures: We defined the difference between gardens and natura spaces througha  series of outdoor activities, games, songs and art projects.

Favorite Activities: We planted our food garden! Students planted onions, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, snap peas – even a blackberry bush! Students also discovered how insects help pollinate plants and rely on them. We met some beautiful painted lady butterflies along with bees from Irvine’s hives. We planted sunflowers to take home and painted flowers made from upcycled plastic water bottles. It was a busy week in the garden!

Next’s Week’s Theme: All a-Flutter (“Bb”)

Try this at home: Count the number of different flowers you can spy blooming right now. How many different spiders or insects can you find among the flowers?

Earth Treasures

This Week’s Adventures: We celebrated Earth treasures by cherishing its natural resources.

Favorite Activities: Paper-making was a hit using recycled scraps of paper. We engineered our own games using recycled objects and marbles. We painted special garden stones and tended our seeds in the greenhouse. We also explored the pools and streams in search of aquatic creatures. Did I mention the mud?

Next’s Week’s Theme: In Our Garden (“Zz”)

Try this at home: Participate in a local Earth Day event to celebrate nature!

Rainbow Earth

This Week’s Adventures: It was a glorious week to search for nature’s colors!

Favorite Activities: We painted rainbow stones for our garden plot and went on a color search in the Woodland Garden with our painted egg cartons. We recycled magazine pages to cut and sort colors into a giant rainbow collage. We prepared the soil for planting our vegetables and watered our plants in the green house. Mostly we reveled in outdoor play thanks to beautiful, mild spring temperatures and sunny skies.

Next’s Week’s Theme: Earth Treasures (“Rr”)

Try this at home: Go on a color hunt in search of budding flowers, trees and shrubs. How many colors can you find?

Make Way for Frogs

This Week’s Adventures: We discovered traits and habits of amphibians – namely frogs!

Favorite Activities: From frog puppets to frog skeletons we learned all about their amazing adaptations. We also disovered their transformation from egg to tadpole, froglet then frog (metamorphosis) and did a breathing experiment with a tadpole. (No animals got hurt in this experiment!) We searched the wetland, wet woods and stream listening for spring peepers and looking for signs of eggs. We had hopping contests and measured who could hop the farthest and met several of Irvine’s frogs with Miss Laura. And yes, we even spotted a green frog down by the stream!

Next’s Week’s Theme: Spring is in the Air (“Ww”)

Try this at home: On a mild night, open the window to hear spring frogs calling.