Life in the garden is smelly, squishy, and lots of work. We embraced the legacy of the gardener with our new friend and mentor, Debra, owner of the Garden in Harrington. Ask your child to give you some insights into the taste and scent as herbs are rolled between fingers or squeezed between teeth. See if you get some names of these early spring risers (sage, beebalm, mint). What looks dead and is smokey in colour (fennel)?
Helping out on the farm is so much fun. What did we do to make sure Aster doesn’t take up too much room in the garden? Talk about who you were teamed up with and how you got this task done? Sometimes kids find unique ways of lightening the load.
Grubs, slugs, and lots of ugs are part of life in the garden. Your child will want to share about these!
SPOILER ALERT
The beautiful old barn is a great place for snacking and crafting. You may not know yet what your child made to celebrate their special mom, but we hope you enjoy their flowery creation.
Fun on this farm includes a big, old maple tree, rope swing and team target practice. We loved how Debra’s family team helped organize the throwing event.
Our trip home had great tree views, friendly truck horns, and a secret staircase. Ask for details about our travels. Happily our lunches were waiting for us thanks to Big Raccoon zipping ahead in his car.
Umbrellas make a neat rooftop in the heat. Sharing the space underneath adds a sense of fun.
It’s happening right before your eyes! The magic of new life being created is all around us in spring. It’s a virtual bee hive of activity around the pond, and we looked up close at how flowering plants and insects work together to create the next generation. Ask your child for their view of how pollination works using some of the proper parts of the flower that we learned about today. It’s sticky business and pretty complex, but your child should have a general sense that pollen is moved from Anther to Stigma and joins with eggs to make seeds (Coles notes version). We will go further with this next week.
We all love flowers but we didn’t really understand the wonder that they are. Do flowers really have egg cells? Wow!! Are many trees also flowering right now? Which ones (willow, apple)? Ask about our flower hike and how we created a wildflower band around our wrists. What guided us in knowing if we could pick a flower or not? (indigenous knowledge of only taking when there is plenty) Why is this important to remember (flowers are needed to create seeds? You will see this band turned into a wildflower bookmark in backpacks today.
We could even squeeze more learning out of the day by joining Mrs. Eastman at the library. Ask your child about the story of Meadowview Street and how one child turned her bare backyard into a garden oasis. Grey Squirrel comes up with the BEST activities, and making fuzzy flowers tops the list.
Creek trail leads to a great wading spot in the creek. Boots got filled (mostly on purpose) and crayfish were spotted. Such a COOL experience offering some challenging balancing acts and brave cooperation.
I am so grateful for Raccoon’s help in moving heavy loads which kept the kids carefree today. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the beautiful moments he captured as well. Thanks to Betty for coming along and making our trip back extra safe. Of course we all love Tamarack, who keeps us flowing and is a true model of appreciation and feeling the joy in the moment. What a gift!!
Happy footsteps until next week Forest Friends:)
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