Over the last two weeks we have had some exciting visitors to Nature Kindergarten! We would like to say a big thank you first to two of the volunteer caretakers of Bee creek. They came and meet us at Bee Creek and taught us about Cut Throat Trout. In the many different traps they had set, we found 5 fish! The children named them Swimmy, Fasty, Smally, Fishy, and Bob. Together we measured the fish, recorded the measurement and took the temperature of the creek. The temperature was eight degrees the morning we were there. We learned that they use oysters for bait, but that Cut Throat Trout also eat fresh water shrimp. The next week we spent time back at Bee creek, to observe what else lives in that habitat. The children caught fresh water shrimp in their nets and observed them in their nature finders.

On Monday we had a very special guest Alison with us, thank you Alison! On our way down Alison showed the children how to make a track that they could follow to get themselves back to the school. The children made arrows using chalk, sticks, pinecones and rocks as well as flagging tape incase the arrows disappeared. At our site the children learned about some first aid skills such as “RED” (Rest, Elevate and Direct pressure). We noticed how much the children really enjoyed this when the next day they were providing rest, elevation and direct pressure to help care for a fallen tree! What great caretakers these children are!  

This week we have been noticing so many parts of nature start or sound like the letters S, T and A! Many of the children have been writing messages to each other using pinecones, sticks and their fingers. Our Nocturnal Nature Detective friend also left us many letters and challenges for us to do.

Thank you to our parent volunteers as well. From them we learned about trees that have lived through forest fires, as well we measured our special tree. Using our tape measures we had previously estimated it was 8 meters and using a dads big tape measure we discovered it was 7.8 meters! We were so close!

 (Prepared by Erin Van Stone, Nature K ECE)