Happy Earth Day!

The Turtles checking out a rooting garden by Harrington Pond.

Happy Earth Day Turtles!  What a great day to appreciate our natural surroundings. We spend much of the day outside. Is there a memory or a story your child could share about their connection to nature? Did you notice the neighbourhood putting out things for large garbage pick up. Did you notice any good items your family or people you know could reuse?  Taking a drive around the community you may find something useful. You never know!  One person’s garbage can be another person’s treasure! And don't forget about the Community Auction. Perhaps your family would like to donate some items to help raise money for the community. Find out how many bags of garbage your family makes in a week. Use the three R's? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle to help reduce your garbage.

Let’s be kind to our environment!  The Turtles divided into two groups…Nature Explorers and Trail River Team…and shared the job of cleaning up around Sunrise Hill.  Did you find anything that would harm plant and animal life if it was left lying around for too long?  How do you think we can stop the litter problem?  If you were asked to solve this problem what would you do?

Looking at the types of garbage we collected!

Let's discover our environment! How did your child feel about looking out across the water? Did they notice anything? Many of us felt grateful for the water being so close by and were excited to take a walk past the beautiful pond on the way to Cedar Hideaway. Did you notice the wooden platform in the water?  What did you think it was, a fishing dock? A boat launch? Garbage dumped into the water?

Let's explore our environment! How did your child feel being closer to the water and exploring for water creatures? What did they find? How did they find it? Maybe you will hear a fish story or two. We found one fish, two crayfish, three water beetles, lots of water striders and baby bugs called nymphs. If we found all those creatures in the water, does your child think that the water is clean and healthy?

What did they notice about the rooting gardens Ant Man helped plant?  What materials did he use to keep the plants safe, warm and healthy?  Did he reuse any materials?

Let's appreciate the environment!! How did you feel when the characters in the book "Isn't it a Beautiful Meadow" by Wolf Harranth kept building and building and destroying the natural environment of the meadow?  Who were the real heroes in the story?  What if you could be a Nature Super Hero?   What would you do to stop people building and polluting the beauty of nature? Would you write letters to the people who run the companies?  Would you write a letter to the mayor of your town?  

Here are some other pictures that tell their own stories!

What does your child suggest you do at home to help keep the environment healthy?  Talk to your child(ren) about what you could do daily around the house to make every day Earth Day!

Together in Nature!

Dragonfly, Cardinal, River Otter, Oriole, Grey Tree Frog