The Nuthatches had an excited week filled with new songs, worms, stories and tapping into their senses, especially listening and touch like during this game of “meet a tree.”

On Monday morning, Nora taught the Nuthatches the Space Worms song! We then worked together as a flock to make a terrarium for any worms, insects or little critters we might come across and talked about how we can be respectful while doing so!

Once we got out to camp on Monday, we played a game called “meet a tree,” where one partner guides the other blindfolded partner to a specific tree. The blindfolded Nuthatch gets a chance to feel the tree for details, and eventually gets to try to identify the tree with the blindfold removed. The Nuthatches displayed some incredible attention to detail using their sense of touch!

After playing our game, the instructors challenged the Nuthatches to see who could gather more firewood for our fire at slunch. The Nuthatches showed incredible determination and the competition was too close to call. Alas, both Nuthatches and instructors joined their gathered firewood for a wonderful slunch-time fire. At slunch, a few of the Nuthatches helped Jamie get a fire going with the bow drill. It was so cool to get a coal and fire from friction! At the same time, Edie shared a cool lesson on how friction works. Ariadne/Nani read the Nuthatches the story called “How Animals Hide,” by Robert McClung. The Nuthatches closed the day with a round of reflective gratitude for what we experienced that day.

On Wednesday, we had an odd spring day with temps in the low 30’s and even saw some snow and rain! We stuck with our theme of worms and had some fun with an adventure to save Astrid who had been turned into an old woman by the Lindworm! This happened right in the morning, and luckily Astrid left us some clues to find her. The Nuthatches gathered all their belongings and showed some impressive tracking and awareness as they followed her clues out to the hemlock grove.

The Nuthatches eventually spotted Astrid by a tree and learned that in order to turn Astrid back into her normal self, everyone had to gather firewood to build a fire for a “string burn.” Everyone worked together and gathered wood for a fire – not an easy task for such a rainy/snowy day. The group showed determination and eventually completed the task, finally freeing Astrid!

We learned that the Lindworm wanted to share a reminder of the Three Respects and the Nuthatches showed compassion and consideration by deciding to write the Lindworm a letter of gratitude and friendship. We ended the day with some free play. It was a full day of adventure and the Nuthatches did not let the odd weather distract them from having so much fun!

Office Location:
Cornell Cooperative Extension, 615 Willow Ave., Ithaca, NY 14850
607-272-2292 | email Us

Preschool Location:
4-H Acres, 418 Lower Creek Rd., Ithaca, NY 14850


Ithaca Forest Preschool is a nature immersion program for children ages 3-5. Our program is run in cooperation with Primitive Pursuits, a project of Cornell Cooperative Extension.