Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Deerfield Parent Participation Class Spring 4/12/10

Ryerson Woods in Riverwoods is where we began our first class of the spring session. When I arrived, there was a note up that many of the animals were on maternity leave and we would be unable to see them or feed them. My first reaction was, "bummer I love to watch the little hands of the children feed these precious goats and lambs". I decided to move on and make it a wonderful learning opportunity. The kids and mom's, dad and babysitters arrived all eager to explore outdoors. We had a great musical circle time, followed by a beautiful hike in the forest looking for sign of spring. We were able to see a few buds on trees and we even saw a few bushes with leaves emerging. We had a very magical few minutes as we sat in a circle on the trail and watched a rolly polly open up and crawl away from us. After a great snack and lots of stories about farms, we hiked over to see the chickens and roosters. We also had a chance to see the HUGE white, very unusual turkey come out of the coop and literally strut her stuff. She was completely showing off for us. We walked by the empty pasture and we so happy when a few of the pregnant goats walked over to the fence. We would literally see the outline of the baby goat inside the mommy goat. It was a very exciting day. We can't wait to end our spring session at Ryerson and see the baby animals.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Winnetka Class April 7th

The not so perfect weather did not stop us from having a wonderful day at Tiny Treks. Both classes were able to get in a small walk during the first part of class. We went searching for worms but were unable to find any. We did, however, find lots of puddles. The kids who wore rain boots had a wonderful time walking through the puddles.
When we returned to the Community House we did a science experiment in which we made raisins dance. Each child got a cup of water. We added some special ingredients, dropped the raisins into the cup, and watched the raisins dance. The kids all thought this was really cool.
I read "I Love Easter!" to both classes. The AM class continued learning about space with me reading "Let's Explore the Moon." The PM class listened to "Doggies" "Belly Button Book" and "Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs!"
Carrie