Welcome, Spring! Welcome, Nuthatches and Nuthatch families!
This week the Nuthatches embraced the new season and some new faces with joy and enthusiasm. We met lead instructor Jamie Eggleston, assistant instructor Edie McRoberts, and two new students. We played name games to introduce ourselves!
Note: thanks to all the Nuthatch instructors (Jamie Eggleston, Emily Rose, and Ariadne Filothei Vazenios) for contributing photos for this week’s post!
On Monday, the Nuthatches went over our community guidelines, the Three Respects: Respect yourself, respect others, and respect the Earth. We shared our names, and our favorite plant. Some favorite plants were skunk cabbage, maple trees, and sunflowers. As the weather gets warmer, we’ll be looking out for green buds on our plant friends! We’ll also be using our senses to observe changes in the temperature, precipitation, and sky. Jamie led us in using colors to express our observations about the weather on our weather chart.
When we arrived in camp on Monday, the Nuthatches were bursting with energy. We showed our new Nuthatch and Jamie our favorite parts of camp: the sap tree, the shelter, the firepit, the seesaw, and more. The Nuthatches even helped Jamie draw a map with charcoal from the fire! Then we sat down to slunch around a warm fire that Edie built. Nora enlisted the Nuthatches to help her tell the story of the Peace Superheroes, which is an important story about animals with different problem-solving skills. We began by telling about Fine Words Fox, who helps people to use fine words in speaking about their feelings; Feel-better Butterfly, who cheers people up by painting his wings; and Shadowtail, who helps the animals by carrying them through the forest on her back. This story was originated by Melissa Blake, the co-founder of Ithaca Forest Preschool.
On Tuesday, the Nuthatches started off the day playing “What time is it, Fine Words Fox?” in the front field. When the answer was “Lunchtime!” we ran very fast back to the starting line! During circle we played the name game super fast! Once we got out to camp, it was time to play “Seasons are Changing” in the big field. The Nuthatches were so good at escaping the taggers, and came up with some great questions to ask, such as “Does your animal fly?” and “Does your animal have claws?” Then we went on a search for Emily, our instructor who’d wandered off in search of firewood. We got a little off-track in our search, but we finally found her because she made crow calls through the brush. At slunch, Emily read two wonderful books to us: “Tico and the Golden Wings” by Leo Lionni, and “Bugs are Insects” by Anne Rockwell. We closed out the day by sharing gratitude and dancing!
Wednesday was a celebration of mud and rain! The front field was full of chocolate-colored puddles that the Nuthatches splashed in. At morning circle, Astrid led us in the song “Oh the Seasons Change”. We used our five senses to see, hear, touch, smell and taste the rain as it fell gently down on us. And we played the tickling game with white pine needles! We even found a dragon egg and put it in a dragon cave in a tree. Once we got to camp, the Nuthatches noticed that the Peace Stones were missing! Jamie showed us a map that had some clues to find them, and we set off to search. Finally we found all of them and returned them to the peace log, which is a special place a person can go if they’re feeling upset. Jamie made a fire to warm us up at slunch, and Nora continued the story of the Peace Superheroes to include Peaceful Porcupine, who reminds us to take a deep breath when we’re angry or frustrated. Astrid sat under an umbrella and read some clever and silly poems from the book “Soup for Breakfast” by Calef Brown.
On Thursday the Nuthatches frolicked in the sunshine all day. We went over creek guidelines, and then trekked over to the creek, where there was a new bridge! While we were there we saw so many interesting things: two dark-eyed juncos playing, skunk cabbage popping up everywhere even in the water, a beautiful fossil, and even a crayfish that seemed to be wounded. The Nuthatches gently helped the crayfish get to a safe place to heal. We also saw a tick crawling around–we took a good look and then brought it to the water to drown. Nuthatch families, make sure to do a thorough tick check every day after program! We all shared a gratitude for the creek and the fun we had there. Then it was time for slunch, where Nora told the Peace Superheroes story again and Emily read a book about frogs! Jamie and Nora also made a special snack: popcorn, with salt and honey! What a nice way to end the first week of spring preschool.
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