It’s been a tough few weeks in our house. Anxiety is running high and some mornings getting out the door is such hard work it barely seems worth the effort. But when things are all going wrong inside, getting the kids outside can turn it all around.
A couple of days ago Little 5s other mum took her to climb a tree, a walk down to the river, and the achievement that comes with doing something hard successfully put a huge smile on both their faces.
Lately Litte5 has been very tired and overwhelmed by everything. School is proving an incredibly difficult transition. The usual activities we do at home are often too taxing for her with too many possibilities for failure or frustration which is the last thing she needs. Taking her nature journal out and seeing what interesting things we can find and chat about is a gentle activity we can do together.
It is Autumn here and the trees are turning. Our street is filled with golden, orange, yellow, red leaves and almost every tree, bush and plant is seeding. This morning we collected seeds and talked about dispersion. Little5 already knew that seeds can be moved by wind and water in order to spread and grow more plants. We talked about how they can be spread by animals, especially seeds inside of fruit. We collected a wide range of seeds which covers all dispersion methods. Little5 pointed out that the seeds pods fall from the trees right where they are and noticed that lots of those trees grow close by one another so perhaps that is how forests grow.
When we got back we cut all the seeds and pods open and looked at them under the microscope. Then together we drew them whole and in half in her nature journal, discussing which dispersion method each probably uses. It took a couple of hours to do this activity. We saw three ducks making there way up the river and paused to watch them glide under the bridge.
CuriousKids 