As the Turtles arrived at Harrington Hall, they were greeted with cold, wet rain. Quick, search for shelter!
How do you make a shelter? Put up a tent? Today, we used our problem solving skills to put up a tent (Thank you, Beaver!). When it comes to putting up a tent, even if you have all the right pieces, it can be hard to know what piece goes where. This was a great start to our day by getting some protection from the elements. With some super teamwork and perseverance the tent went up and down and up again! How many Turtles were able to fit in the tent? Did we fill it to capacity? Was there any room for more friends?
Camping doesn’t always happen on warm, dry and sunny days. Sometimes you need to set up when the weather is stormy. Did setting up camp remind you of all the animals who also need to build shelters for protection? In the book “When We Go Camping” by Margriet Ruurs, it was interesting to see all the animals and humans camping and living together peacefully. What animals do you remember seeing in the book? What is your favourite part about camping? Cardinal loved hearing about all your experiences and all the things you noticed!
Let’s go on an adventure and try to find a suitable spot for our group shelter. Meet you in Mystery Forest! How long can someone survive in the wilderness without shelter? Hint: 3 minutes or hours?. Why is shelter so important? The Turtles broke off into two small groups (Shelters Builders and Nature School Survivors) and started their search for the perfect spot to build a shelter. Did you like the area your group chose? Was it flat, dry and big enough for our whole group? Was it sheltered from the wind? Did it have access to materials for building? When you looked up did it look safe from falling branches or other dangers? It was tricky to decide which group had the best spot for our shelter. After we voted fair and square, we made our decision. Where are we going to start building our new shelter? We are excited to start working! We should start thinking about what we can call our shelter.
Grey Squirrel reminded us with the book “Water Fire Food” by Diane Vukovi that building a shelter is not the only thing you need to do to stay safe and survive in the wilderness. We learned how to collect drinking water in bags hanging on branches and that water in ponds is not safe to drink. What should you do when you finally find water or snow? We learned how to make a bonfire when it is wet out and you don’t have matches. Would you try to find a cave? All this work would make us hungry! How do we find food?
Revisiting Mystery Forest later in the afternoon, the Turtles continued to think about all the things we need to build our shelters. The survival game we played reminded us that we need a balance of water, food and fire and that we always have to be aware of dangers around us. Look out for Cardinal with the red ball! Did the ball touch your leg? Off to the tent hospital with you!
Grey Wolf and Black Bear knew finding food was important for survival so they strung up a rope to the top of an old fallen tree and dropped the line to fish. Hawk played the role of fish so the fishing trip was a success. Thank goodness for the long green rope! Pileated Woodpecker did some of his own problem solving when it came to climbing the maple tree. Red Fox set up his fishing lab in the maple tree and is eager to find and study more fish.
Looking forward to sharing our journals next week! What ideas did you draw and write about to help us make our shelter amazing? Catfish, Water Strider and Beaver made triangular structures out of branches. Grey Wolf drew a diagram of his house! I wonder if we can add features of your house to our shelter? We will see next Tuesday
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