pictures from the Heron Habitat Helpers tour

Lesson Plan- Flowers

Nature School
April 30th, 2012
Flowers

Welcome to Nature School today! Let’s sing our welcome song-

Letter of the Day:
Today we are going to be learning about flowers and pollination so our letter of the day is P for pollination. What other words do you know that start with P? Do any of our nature kids’ names start with P?

Who has seen some flowers blooming lately? There are lots of them, aren’t there? I’ve seen flowers on bushes, trees, and growing straight out of the ground!

Role Play:
Let’s pretend to be a flower. Let’s pretend our feet are roots. Plant them down in the dirt! Then stand up straight and tall. Your legs and your middle are the stem of the flower. Now, our arms and hands are our leaves. They help us photosynthesis and soak up sunlight. Now reach your neck up high and face the sun. That beautiful face of yours in the flower with its petals and beautiful bright colors. Oh, the sun feels so nice! Now it’s raining! We love the rain because it gives us a nice drink which we need to survive. Let’s slurp up some water with our roots. SLURP!! Now it’s really windy! Sway back and forth and side to side. Good thing we have a nice, strong stem to hold us up in the wind. Good job everyone!

Hike:
Who wants to go on a flower hike? As we hike, looks for flowers and point them out for everyone else, okay? Let’s see how many different flowers we can find.

Flower Dissection:
Who knows what dissection means? Dissection means to take something apart and look at the inside. Who wants to dissect a flower? (Have a diagram for each child that shows the different flower parts. Give each child a flower to dissect. Walk them through the different parts of the flower including the reproductive parts. Explain that pollen comes from the anthers, moves to the stigma, down the style, and into the ovary during pollination. A flower can pollinate itself, but many flowers require assistance from insects, wind, birds, or bats to move pollen from flower to flower which is called cross pollination).

Further discussion on pollination: What is pollination? Pollination is what happens when a flower turns into a seed, or a berry, or a fruit. The flower is beautiful and attractive and smells wonderful. Little insects come and get nectar from the flower. When they land on the flower, they get a little bit of pollen on them. Then they spread that pollen to the next flower they go to. That is exactly what the flower wants to have happen!!! Spreading pollen from one flower to the next is great!! Then the seed begins to grow.
Diagram of flower parts:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/zFWLdGHD8kqRXYlKbOjN1dMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink





Game:
Pollination Game- have 6 cutouts of bees. Have 6 children be bees and the rest be flowers. Have the bees go from flower to flower and pollinate, until they have pollinated each. Then switch roles.


Song:
The Plant Part Song (Tune: The Farmer in the Dell)

The seed makes a plant.
The seed makes a plant.
With soil and rain and sunny days,
The seed makes a plant.

The roots find the water.
The roots find the water.
With soil and rain and sunny days,
The roots find the water.

The stem holds it up.
The stem holds it up.
With soil and rain and sunny days,
The stem holds it up.

The leaves make the food.
The leaves make the food.
With soil and rain and sunny days,
The leaves make the food.

The flower makes the fruit.
The flower makes the fruit.
With soil and rain and sunny days,
The flower makes the fruit.

The fruit holds the seeds.
The fruit holds the seeds.
With soil and rain and sunny days,
The fruit holds the seeds.

Craft:
Handprint flowers- Give each child a piece of paper. Ask them to draw a stem and leaves. Paint each child’s hand with paint. Have them stamp their hand onto paper.

Pictures from Monday's class

Here are the pictures from Monday's nature school lesson on mud and soil:

Smelling skunk weed

A cute, little mudcake with a flower on top

Playing in the creek

Mud cupcakes

Digging in the mud

Getting water

Nature school buds

Busy little nature schooler

Lesson Plan- mud and soil

On Monday, we are going to be learning about mud and soil. I've had a lot going on this weekend, so I'm not going to plan very much of a lesson. We will talk a little about soil and why it's important. We will do a little math equation: soil + water = mud. The best part- we will make mud pies! I've done this with my boys a few times. They love it, or course. What kid doesn't love making mud pies? I'll gather some tools- plastic yogurt containers, rolling pins, shovels, spoons, muffin tin, muffin liners, mortar and pestle, flowers, pebbles, marbles, etc. The place where we are hiking has a little stream and stream bed where we will set up our pie kitchen. It should be great!

Here are some mud pie pictures I found online from a cool mama (who I secretly envy with her farm, animals, five kids, homeschooling, and down to earth personality) who periodically writes for this blog- http://rhythmofthehome.com/archives/summer-2010/mud-pie-kitchen/ . Her personal blog, with lots of other great ideas for nature-based play and education is here- http://www.gsheller.com/

Eggs and Nests

Nature School
April 2, 2012

Nests and Eggs

Welcome song.
Today we are going to learn about nests and eggs! Our letter for today- E. Does anyone have a name that starts with e? Elliot, Eli, ….

Imagination exercise:
Before we go on our hike, I wanted to ask you all to close your eyes and imagine a little story with me. It’s a sunny, warm day in spring. You are outside playing and you see a really great climbing tree. It is tall and has branches down low so you can climb up onto them. You climb and climb. Pretty soon you are high in the tree. Then you see it! I wonderful little nest tucked near the trunk and a branch of the tree. It is about the size of your cereal bowl. You very carefully climb near it, careful not to bump the branches too much. Careful not to touch it. As you get closer, you peer inside. What do you see? Bright blue robin eggs! They look so fragile and delicate. They are the color of the sky. The nest has bits of feathers and straw and dried grass, cushioning the little eggs. You want to pick one up but you realize that there is a little baby bird growing inside the egg and you wouldn’t want to harm it. Plus, the mother or father robin will be back soon and they might be upset if you were touching their eggs! Carefully you climb back down the tree. You can’t wait to tell you family and friends about your discovery. As you gaze up into the tree again, you see a mother robin fly right into the tree and land on her nest! 
Did you enjoy imagining that story? Should we go explore and see what we can find in the forest today?

Hike:
Allow the children to explore, look for nests, build a nest of their own with twigs, sticks, branches, etc. Point out various nest you see along the way.

Nest Matching Game:
Print out or find in magazines pictures of animals and their nests/eggs/dens/home (for example- alligator, turtle, swallow, salmon, snake, frog, robin, swan, chicken, beaver, squirrel, ant, snail, etc). We are going to play a game! Did you know that there are lots of different kinds of nest? I have a bunch of pictures of different nests with eggs inside. I want to see if you can tell me what kind of animal’s nest it is. Then, I’m going to pass out the animal and nest cards, and you are all going to try and find your match among your friends.

Egg in the middle game:
All the kids gather in a circle. The children in the circle make up the “nest”. One child sits in the middle, pretending to be an egg. They then hatch and act out an animal of their choice (the little ones may need help). The children making up the nest try and guess.

Books:
“Guess what is growing inside this egg” by Mia Posada

Water and Rain

*part of this lesson is a repeat of a previous lesson on water.


Nature School
March 26th, 2012


Water and Rain
Welcome song. Welcome new friends.


Today we are going to learn a little about water! We’ve talked about water before. Do you all remember? Why do you like water? (swim, drink, splash, bath, ocean, waterfalls, etc.). Do you know that we could not live on earth without water? What other creatures need water to live? Do plants need water too?



Explorations and Observation Time:
Encourage the kids to look our for animals and birds that live at the wetland, point out the beaver lodge, snags, nests, and wetland plants. 


Did you know that the ground we are standing on is really a huge, gigantic sponge?! Alright, all the kids close their eyes. All the parents are going to jump one time on the count of three. One, two, three! Did the kids feel the ground move? That's because the soil here is saturated or filled with water. 


Let’s think about the plants that live here. Do you see the trees that have their roots and trunks in the water? Most of these trees are willow trees. Willows like water. Can you say it with me? There are also lots of tall grasses like rushes, reeds, and cattails. These plants provide habitats, food, and security to the birds and animals that live here.


Song-
There is something we need to live and water is its name-o.
W-A-T-E-R, W-A-T-E-R, W-A-T-E-R, and water is its name-o.

Story- Drippy the raindrop
Once upon a time there was a raindrop named Drippy (picture of drop of water). Drippy was having fun! He was doing his favorite thing in the whole wide world- lying on his back floating in the ocean. He looked up at his good old friend Mr. Sun, who had just come up (hold up picture of sun). Mr. Sun rose higher and higher and Drippy got hotter and hotter!

Just then, Drippy saw a big, dark cloud moving across the sky. “I wish I could go up to that cool looking cloud and cool down a bit!”

All of a sudden, Drippy felt himself rising up into the air! He was evaporating! Can we all saw evaporate together? EVAPORATE!

He landed softly on a huge, fluffy cloud. There were thousands of other drops of water too. One of the drops of water called out to Drippy, “Ahoy there! I’m Salty!” (hold up picture of another drop of water with captain hat on).

“I’m Drippy! Nice to meet you. Where are we headed?”

“We are going right toward those mountains over there and it looks like a storm is a brewing. If things get rough, just abandon ship. Jump right off the cloud and toward the earth” Salty said.

After awhile, things did start getting rough. Drippy got ready to jump. 1-2-3-JUMP! Drippy was raining now! He fell with millions of other raindrops down toward the forest near the mountains.

Drippy landed right on a tree (show picture of tree with roots). He slid down on leaf onto a branch and then down the trunk. Down, down, down he slid down the trunk and into the soil near the tree’s roots. Wow! What an adventure we was having.

When we reached the soil, he found lots of other water drops there too. They were filling up the soil pores. He sunk deeper into the soil and into an underground stream. Then, guess what happened? The underwater stream came out of the ground as a spring!! The stream was now above ground. The stream eventually led him out into the ocean again!

Drippy leaned back, floating on his back and looked up at his good friend Mr. Sun again. “Hello there, Mr. Sun!” What an adventure I’ve had! I’ve been through the water cycle. Can you all say WATER CYCLE? I’m learned so much and seen so much of our beautiful earth. What a wonderful world we live in!”

Game: Find your partner puzzle. I found various pictures in national geographic of lakes, animals, insects, ocean life, etc. I laminated each picture then cut it in half. There are enough half pieces for each child to have one. Give each child a puzzle piece and ask them to find their partner with the other half.


Extra Parent Info:
Willows- 5 species that live here at Marsh Island. Native Americans used willow shoots for the same purpose we use asprin. Asprin was derived from willows-

The leaves and bark of the willow tree have been mentioned in ancient texts from Assyria, Sumer and Egypt as a remedy for aches and fever, and the Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates wrote about its medicinal properties in the fifth century BC. Native Americans across the American continent relied on it as a staple of their medical treatments, because willows contain salicin, a substance that chemically resembles aspirin. It temporarily relieves headache, stomachache, and other body pain. Salicin is metabolized into salicylic acid in the human body, which is a precursor of aspirin. In 1763, its medicinal properties were observed by the Reverend Edward Stone in England. He notified the Royal Society, who published his findings. The active extract of the bark, called salicin, was isolated to its crystalline form in 1828 by Henri Leroux, a French pharmacist, and Raffaele Piria, an Italian chemist, who then succeeded in separating out the compound in its pure state. In 1897, Felix Hoffmann created a synthetically altered version of salicin (in his case derived from the Spiraea plant), which caused less digestive upset than pure salicylic acid. The new drug, formally acetylsalicylic acid, was named Aspirin by Hoffmann's employer Bayer AG. This gave rise to the hugely important class of drugs known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow)

Salmonberry and Thimbleberry- Native americans used these berries to make fruit leather

Nootka Rose hips- made into tea. Great source of Vitamin C

Bubbles in water- escaping methane gas from decaying plant material

A little history:
150-ft long Long house or potlatch houses- stood where UW steam smokestack and edgewater apartments. Where you see University Village, Ravenna Creek (now underground in the North Trunk Sewer) once emptied into the lake and was one of the highest salmon spawning creeks in the area.

The pathways- the city has built this path consisting of floating spans, bridges, viewing platforms which are anchored through the peat bog to the bedrock 80 feet below.

Animals:
Animals and birds to look for: great blue heron, eagles, buffleheads, coots, wood ducks, beavers, and western pond turtles.