Turtles, Rock Mountains, Autumn Equinox, & Other Fun Stuff

Co-Op today was such a BLAST! The weather was beautiful for our outdoor adventure planned by Mrs. Deb. Our morning started with an introduction to the Autumn Eqinox & the changes that happen in Fall (leaves changing color & falling, animals hibernating, seed pods dropping or opening, changes in the clothes we wear). Everyone had a great time looking through the bag of supplies for today...Reese's favorite was the bug catcher that looked like a meatball maker that Grammie has!

Holding a Sweet Gum seed pod. "Mama, it's prickly!"

We learned that the turtles could drag bread into the water, but the catfish in the pond could suck a hole in the middle of the bread! We also talked about hibernating, & that in a few months there would be no turtles in the pond. And we learned that turtles really like Kix Cereal...who knew??

It's all about catching those "teachable moments". As we started on our nature hike, Mrs. Deb spotted some animal tracks in the dirt. Lots of good guesses were made about what kind of animal it was, perhaps a dog or a coyote? All the children then made their own tracks in the dirt. Some of them could even see numbers in the dirt or zig zags from the bottom of their shoes!

John Joseph made the best find of the day! A turtle was just there, in the middle of our nature hike. Of course, he quickly pulled himself shut, but the kiddos were so interested in it. Mrs. Deb thought it was a box turtle because of it's hinged underside that allowed it to close up completely (with it's head tucked inside), unlike the turtles in the water who can pull ther head & legs in but can't close up completely. I took lots of good pictures of the turtle, & Reese and I are going to do some internet research to find out what kind of turtle we found. If it is a box turtle, Mrs. Deb is going to report our find to a box turtle reserarch group who is tracking sightings of box turtles in the wild. Although we waited about 5 minutes for the turtle to open back up, I think it knew there were curious little busy bodies around & it chose to stay tightly closed!

"Are they gone yet?"

Nothing beats climbing on big rocks! As you can tell from their hair, the wind really picked up & it was blowing everything around. Reese fell from the rocks a few times, but no major damage...just a few scrapes to the knees.

After our co-op days, I always think how thankful I am for our group of friends. Reese's expreiences in the past month have been so rewaring...for him & me! Being able to watch him grow & experience new things has been a blast & I can't wait for co-op every week. We both look forward to learning new things together!!!