Forest Preschool was full of fun times, adventures and beautiful sunny weather today!
Our day started off with a nice welcome from the warmth of the education barn. After dropping off our belonging and saying goodbye to our parents/guardians, we got started on making our drawing books. Everyone got a colored piece of paper to decorate with their name on it for the cover, and then we filled it with papers so that we could draw our adventures in them, color leaf prints, or tell a story.
Many of us this morning were feeling rather goofy, talking in accents, playing with our hair, and making funny faces. We decided that it was time of a freeze dance party! We danced to get all of our giggles out, even Debbie became an arch that we all went under! Definitely warmed us up for the huge adventure ahead of us today!
After our morning meeting, where some of us shared what we did during the week and had some items to share, like sea glass, we packed up our backpacks, put on our jackets and headed out to explore Audubon!
We made it to Peeper pond to sit down in the sun and have snack. While we were there, we noticed most of the milkweed had opened and released their seeds. Some were opened but the seeds were not yet dispersed, so a few of us helped out the plant and released the seeds into the wind to spread them through the field!
Once we couldn’t see any more milkweed plants that needed help, we moved toward the Peeper pond. To our surprise there was no water in this pond anymore, due to the dry summer and fall. We all went down into the pond and explored through the forest of cattails. Within a bundle of cattails we were able to find an empty bird nest, which we discussed and believe was the home of a red winged black bird.
After our initial exploration of the Peeper pond, we were feeling very adventurous and went even farther into the Peeper pond to find this grassy area that was in the middle of the pond. From there we kept exploring and found ourselves under this giant Yellow birch tree!
Debbie taught us all something cool too, if your rip off a tiny branch of the Yellow Birch tree and chew on it, it tastes a little like Root beer soda! We all had a little taste and really enjoyed it!
This tree was by a boardwalk and we followed it! It took us to another boardwalk, one that we had walked on earlier that day! We knew the way now and headed back to the field of Peeper Pond to have lunch!
During lunch we colored a picture or anything about our adventure that we liked. Some of us drew cattails, some drew the birds nest, or the Milkweed seeds too!
During snack, we read a lovely story narrated by Victoria about a boy and his Salamander as Debbie prepared our delicious snack! She cut apples in half, put cinnamon and butter on each half, and then cooked them using the base of our Kelly Kettle! Such a yummy way to end the Day of Forest Preschool!
We are so excited for so many more fun journeys to come!
Green Mountain Audubon Center 