Gnomes and scavenger hunts

When the students arrived yesterday, we got our brains and bodies warm with a "Winter Scavenger hunt."

A partner pair scoping out the scavenger hunt list

While searching for animal signs, she tried to crawl along the top of the crusty snow.  Success!

We had our morning meeting and snack and then started our crafty project for the day: felt gnomes!

The necessary supplies: scissors, needles, thread, stencils

Felt and wool roving for stuffing the gnome

First, gather the materials.  Then, trace the stencil onto a piece of felt with a pencil or fabric marker.  Next, cut out the felt piece and sew the two sides together.  The pointed part will be pointed up.  Imagine that this is the gnome's hat!  Lastly, fill the gnome shape with wool roving and make friends with your new, little friend.

Careful sewing

After each student finished her gnome, she chose to build a home for it or draw and write in her journal about her gnome. 

 

Here is what this student's shared about her gnome:

"I'm going to name my gnome Roberta!  I love my gnome.  She looks almost exactly like yours, except for the stitching.  '(in a singing voice) Roberta, Roberta...' Guys, when all of our gnomes are done, want to play that its a gnome town?"

Gnome town

Our gnome posse

We spent the second half of the day eating lunch and playing at Deer Camp. 

Mustaches never get old!

With the temps in the mid-thirties, we could have stayed outside building, exploring, smelling, feeling and listening all day!  By the time we come back from February break in two weeks, the weather will probably be warmer and spring will be on its way, but you never really can tell in Vermont!  Zach and I envision less time for indoor craft projects and more time outdoors playing, exploring, learning, and gardening!!  (Stay tuned for more on that fun development soon.  Hint: it involves Home Depot...)

Why I build fires.

Each day we meet for Forest School, we make a fire.  It is a warm and welcoming ritual in the snowy, deep winter of central Vermont.  

 

But I have to admit, I wasn't always so keen on having a fire.  The pre-fire logistics of gathering kindling, requesting firewood donations from parents, checking the weather forecasts for wind and snow and rain all seemed too daunting.  Plus, with my poor circulation, the thought of having to take off my expedition-style mountaineering mittens to start a fire seemed worse than sitting for a few hours without a fire!  I would relegate the fire responsibility to my co-leader and supervise free play and tell stories instead. 

But earlier this week, when my co-teacher offered to join the group for free play, I somewhat ambivalently accepted the role of "Fire Tender."  It was a relatively warm day for mid-February (mid-20 degrees F) and Zach had already started the fire.  All I had to do was add more wood and stir the coals when the fire started to dwindle.  The crackling fire and the sounds of children laughing and shouting in play was comforting and I found a pleasant rhythm to my task.  I came to appreciate that task of tending fire really requires one to cultivate tenderness - attentive, patient, alert and observant.  In essence, being with the fire was quite similar to how I strive to be with my students.  The hour of tending fire passed surprisingly quickly, interspersed by visits from children to warm their hands, dry their mittens and share an interesting observation, and there was a welcoming fire for our end of the day Thanksgiving circle and closing rituals.  

This afternoon was a pivotal moment for me.  I used to skeptically approach fires as something too "crunchy" for me and a practice that was too time consuming to meld with my teaching style.  But I have really come to appreciate the immeasurable value of teaching with a fire.  

After going over some basic safety expectations with your fire guests, the fire is an amazing management tool.   The students naturally gravitate towards it, they are focused and thoughtful around it.  We eat lunch around it, share stories while gazing into its depths, and have it as a gathering point to return to after play and exploration.  

There are countless science lessons that flow from it. Hello, states of matter!  Not to mention cooking, change over time, social studies, tool use, and the list goes on.  It is fun to see what these kindergarten and first grade students know about fire and what preconceptions they have about how things burn and what the difference is between steam and smoke.  I am lucky enough to have colleagues with myriads of experience teaching with fire and who have created lessons involving safe practices with fire.

Plus, the very act of gathering around a fire is powerful and is something that has been practiced for centuries. In a culture that is ever-more focused on deriving pleasure from staring at screens, there is something peacefully rejuvenating that happens when you're staring into a fire with beloved students and colleagues. 

Footprints in the Snow

Raccoon tracks at NBNC

Every time it snows, it is as if a blank canvas has been strewn across the landscape.  As animals move across the carpet of snow, they are writing their stories onto the canvas.  Those stories lie there waiting for us to find and interpret.  It may be a day, or a week that these stories remain, but with the next snow or thaw, those stories will be erased never to be read again. 

It is this ephemeral nature of animal tracks that makes them so special.  Hiking through the forest the day after a snowfall, the tracks you find may have been left just a few hours earlier.  Be it bobcat or mink, fisher or fox, animals we seldom see in the flesh make their presence known with their footprints.

One of the biggest mistakes a beginning tracker will make is to look at just one print.  This may be enough evidence to determine which species left the track, but a single print fails to capture the story.  Was the animal moving swiftly across the land, as if just passing through?  Was it stalking prey?  Trying to escape from a predator?  The patterns left by animals will reveal their behavior and tell their story.  Follow the tracks (backwards so that you don’t sneak up on and startle the animal) to extend the story and see where that animal has been and what it has done.  If you’re lucky, you’ll be treated to a fascinating tale and a hidden glimpse into the lives of some of our hardiest and hardest-to-see forest residents.

To learn more about tracking, please join us for the Naturalist Journeys lecture by Angella Gibbons TOMORROW NIGHT!

Winter Wildlife Tracking
Friday, February 15, 7:00 p.m.

From mink trails, moose scrapes, fox tracks, turkey scat to squirrel taps---what can we learn from our wild neighbors? Come find out, with local tracker Angella Gibbons, who will share an inspiring slide show and stories that can help reveal many tracking mysteries! Angella has been connecting people of all ages to the wild for 25 years; is the founding director of EarthWalk Vermont and holds a Level III certificate in Wildlife Track & Sign through Cybertracker Conservation. See more lectures.

All presentations take place at the
Unitarian Church of Montpelier

Snow Scorpionflies

Some insects die at the onset of winter; others hibernate; and some even fly south, not to return until spring. But a hardy few actually thrive in winter. One such creature is a very peculiar insect called the Snow Scorpionfly.

A mating pair of Snow-born Boreus (Boreus nivoriundus)
atop the snow, seen near NBNC on February 12, 2013

 Snow Scorpionflies are typically only seen in winter, often walking on top of the snow. Since getting wing muscles warm enough to fly is difficult in cold temperatures, Snow Scorpionflies have little use for them and as such their wings have evolved into tiny stubs. Instead, they walk (or sometimes hop) across the snow. You may find them eating moss at the base of trees, or if you’re lucky, you can even catch them mating atop the snow (see above)!

Most likely the Mid-winter Boreus (Boreus brumalis)
found and photographed in E. Calais by Erika Mitchell

These fascinating creatures are the closest living relative to fleas. As more research is done incorporating DNA analyses, fleas may eventually be considered highly specialized scorpionflies. While their dark bodies contrast well with the white snow, they are very small (about a half-centimeter long) and can easily be overlooked. If you manage to find one, don’t pick it up… it is said that they are so well-adapted to cold that if you hold one, the heat from your hand can kill it!

Fiber fun with Forest School

When the late January chills dip into the single digits, the Forest Schoolers spend a little less time in the forests and fields and spend a little more time indoors exploring other crafts and projects. We are in the midst of a fiber unit right now, and we have experimented with lots of fiber crafts over the past few weeks.  On the first day of our unit, we felt the fiber, examined it under magnifying lenses, and picked through Alpaca fiber which was donated by Melissa and Chris Pierce at North Branch Alpaca Farm. What a mess we made! 

 

 

 

 A guest speaker showed us how to use a drum carder.  We used the clean, long pieces of fiber to card into rovings.  

These rovings can be used for many things, including pretend beards,

 

 and they can be spun into yarn.

 

On another day, we made beautiful needle-felted works of art from colorful, dyed rovings!

 

 

Most recently, we used yarn to weave little bags.  We started with these items:

 

 

  and we practiced weaving with our families 

We ate our lunches by the fire and read one of many fiber-themed books, A New Coat for Anna, by Harriet Ziefert. 

 

Afterwards, we explored a frozen swamp and found some incredible ice formations! 

 

 

The day ended by listening to the gentle swishing of ice along the river bank.  It was a surprsing, unexpected sound and a lovely way to end an enriching day. 

 

 

 

 

 

How Do We Get There?

Every ECO day at any school here in Vermont has its own gifts and challenges of getting out the door. I’m sure each teacher we work with feels the burden of piled rain pants and the reminders that snow pants go on first, then your coat.  Do you have your snack, water bottle, and journal? Someone forgot their boots and socks!?  To top it off there may be an hourly forecast for rain the three hours you plan to be out with your students. Or, the first snow squall passes through in the midst of playing games in an open field that leads to bursts of joy and the chasing of snowflakes with tongues sticking towards the sky. Then a student steps in a mud hole up to their knee on a chilly October day. The next thing you know it’s a cooperative engineering moment amongst the trapped and the rescuers.  

What has already been achieved as a lifelong lesson in the classroom is how to take care of yourself. Getting those mittens on and zippers zipped is not easy. The social modeling of watching others able to master these simple self- care tasks helps other children to believe that they can do the same.  We can do it together with positive encouragement. We can get dressed, pack our bags and walk all the way to our destination! These are the first steps to developing self-efficacy. With a strong self-efficacy students believe in themselves to accomplish tasks that are challenging and then reach their goals.

It’s unanimous that the stumbling and bumbling of laying down the habits of getting ready for ECO pays off in the field and forest. The simplest acts of climbing a steep hill, building a shelter for a mouse,  or coming together to hear a classmates story of discovery are all built off of the collective belief that, Yes, we can do this. I can do this. I am succeeding and I am learning.

It’s all about getting there. Once we have arrived, no matter what route you have taken, the learning begins to unfold in a multitude of ways.  And who is doing all this learning? I believe every one of us, large and small.

 

Superbowl of Birding X: RESULTS

For the fifth consecutive year, the North Branch Nature Center sponsored young birders to compete in the Superbowl of Birding in Essex County, MA, only this year something was different... there were two teams!  NBNC has coordinated youth teams for birding competitions since 1999 and these fun events have been an opportunity for kids from around New England to come together and celebrate their love of birds.  From Berkshire to Rutland, this year's participants represented all corners of Vermont. 

This Western Grebe at Plum Island
may have been the rarest bird of the day.

The first team, the North Branch Noddies, was coached by Chip Darmstadt and consisted of middle-school aged birders and adult chaperones who were participating in their very first competition.  Despite the challenges of cold weather and unfamiliar birds, the youth team had an exceptional day tallying numerous rare species.  The second team, the Chocolate-headed Cowbirds (with sprinkles), was coached by Larry Clarfeld and consisted of high-school students and young adults, all veterans of previous birding competitions.  The two teams' combined tally of 68 species highlights the diversity of birds that can be found along the New England coast, even in the depths of winter. 

The Superbowl operates on a points system, where rare birds are given a higher point value, and the combined species list below depicts the point values of each bird as follows:
1 point (plain text)
2 points (bold)
3 POINTS (BOLD, CAPS)
4 POINTS (BOLD, CAPS, ITALICS)
5 POINTS (BOLD, CAPS, ITALICS, UNDERLINED)

Canada Goose	WESTERN GREBE	Blue Jay
BRANT	Northern Gannet	American Crow
Mute Swan	Great Cormorant	Black-capped Chickadee
Gadwall	Bald Eagle	Tufted Titmouse
American Black Duck	Northern Harrier	Red-breasted Nuthatch
Mallard	COOPER'S HAWK	White-breasted Nuthatch
CANVASBACK	Red-tailed Hawk	Carolina Wren
RING-NECKED DUCK	PEREGRINE FALCON	HERMIT THRUSH
Greater Scaup	SANDERLING	American Robin
Common Eider	BONAPARTE'S GULL	Northern Mockingbird
Harlequin Duck	Ring-billed Gull	European Starling
Surf Scoter	Herring Gull	YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER
White-winged Scoter	Iceland Gull	American Tree Sparrow
Black Scoter	GLAUCOUS GULL	Song Sparrow
Bufflehead	Great Black-backed Gull	White-throated Sparrow
Common Goldeneye	RAZORBILL	Dark-eyed Junco
Hooded Merganser	Black Guillemot	Northern Cardinal
Common Merganser	Rock Pigeon	House Finch
Red-breasted Merganser	Mourning Dove	WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL
WILD TURKEY	Eastern Screech-Owl	COMMON REDPOLL
Red-throated Loon	RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER	PINE GROSBEAK
Common Loon	Downy Woodpecker	House Sparrow
Horned Grebe	Hairy Woodpecker