A bark beetle found by Hunter. It was tickly!

An ant found by Laurel. It was still cold but beginning to move around.

Mud. Love it and hate it. Lyndon had a particularly good mud outfit on today! Probably from rolling down muddy hills over and over.

I remember dissecting owl pellets myself as a third grader. Incredibly fascinating! 

Gemma high up on the root ball. This is a great place for a climbing challenge with all the frozen mud but lots of little sticks for foot and handholds. 

Rowen with his snowman. He and Nathaniel were rolling balls of snow down the hill into the ravine to make them larger.

Lyndon: “The nature was singing to me.” You can see him sitting under his tree at his Sit Spot and the bird in the tree that he heard. 

Emilia: “I went in the tree. I found a tree stump.” You can see how Emilia is writing the beginning and ending sounds of her words! And she got her snap words right too.

Amelie: “There was water by the benches. It was melting.” She didn’t quite finish coloring, so I hope she’ll forgive me for posting. But Amelie shows here that naturalists notice even the smallest things, especially about changes in the weather. 

More ice fishing.

You could see where the water level of the drainage dropped, leaving a gap under new, thick ice. Jackson was playing in the hole and everyone was pretending to find pretend frogs and snakes.

It was fun to learn that crows talk to each other and that spiders are active in the winter! 

Hiking

Hikers stopped plenty of times to play!

Laurel: “We all had to go through the creepy forest. It was dark.”

Jackson explained, “We went on the bridges.” You can see the blue ice beneath.

Meanwhile, the other kids were sawyers working hard. Astrid: “The wood box was so full. And Mr. Smaha helped.” We were glad to have Nora’s dad with us today!

Many kids helped build dams. They used rocks and sticks, and stuck mud and leaves in the small cracks.

Astrid was busy fishing (note fishing pole) and here are the fish (muddy snow/slush balls coming off the edges of the stream) she collected. She made a giant fish cake to eat with Rowen and Emilia!

Logan’s journal: “I found a stream. It was fun. I made a dam. It stopped the water.” He labeled “mud,” “rocks,” and his friends Jack, Hayden, and Jackson as well as himself.

Hunter had fun fishing too! He labeled “me,” “pole,” “mud,” and “fishing.” You can clearly see the fish/slush balls in the water!

We had to work hard to clear the snow from our fire circle. Braxton helped shovel for half an hour! 

We also needed to replenish our wood supply. Here is Hayden sawing, Astrid holding the stick steady, and Gemma’s dad Mr. Luthy helping.

After all that work we were happy to play in some new areas. We loved these new climbing trees across the field. (Silas, Logan, Jackson and Lyndon in the front, Jackson way up top!)

Rowen’s Forest Journal. You can see how he wrote labels and is starting to write a whole sentence below. (The fire was smoky today because of all the icy wood!)

Gemma documented one of the most important events of today: a lost tooth! Luckily her dad was right there and saw it fall so it wasn’t lost in the snow.

Logan: “Me and Hayden playing zombie.” His picture shows how zombies’ arms stick out, and he labeled “arms.” 

The story of our day. It was a good one! 

Gemma: “I like ice crystals. They are really cool. Look. Me.”

Amelie: “I built a pile of pine needles and pinecones and leaves and sticks.” She labeled “ice crystals,” “me,” “sun,” “clouds,” “hats,” and “hair.”

Jackson: “Jack and I threw a rope into the tree and it got stuck.” He labeled “stuck,” “Jack,” “rope,” “tree,” and “me.”

Here’s how we eat lunch safely in the cold. We keep our mittens on, or we trade off with one hand out and one hand in. We eat quickly! We sit on our backpacks to stay off the cold ground and put our food on the bench.

…were the tracks of a large adult fisher. Laurel asked me, “Do they fish?” And I had to tell her they do not. A fisher is a large weasel, a predator, known for its agility and ability to catch and kill porcupines. We’ll have to learn about fishers soon!

Like all weasels, fishers have five toes, which distinguishes them from both dogs and cats (foxes, coyotes, bobcats) that have four. You can see the claw marks nicely here. And a kid’s hand for size– this track was about 5 inches long.

Today we put up some hooks too, for hanging up teacher bags and teaching materials.

Sound busy enough yet? Matt Tavares, our visiting NY Times Bestselling children’s book author and illustrator, also came to visit our woods. He asked us, “Did you guys fly here like Dasher? We didn’t see any tracks as we walked in!” And we had to explain that we walk the “long way” through the woods.