Winter 2024 - Week Five

February 2, 2024  •  Vol. 20

Greetings Honeysuckle Families,

We had such a great time together this week in the garden! The children were still buzzing about their big trip to the Natural History Museum and one Society member even crafted a Lego version of the museum over the weekend, complete with dinosaurs, gems and a gift shop. These kids never cease to inspire and amaze me.

On Monday, we had a very fun and engaging play time. The children noticed right away the weather vane craft that I set up on the table and were delighted to see the arrow move each time the wind blew. It surprised them every time, as though it were magic! We also discussed whether or not plants were dead (annuals) or just sleeping (perennials). Sometimes it’s hard to tell! We did a winter garden scavenger hunt to see what we could find and talked about what the “C” and “F” stand for on the thermometer. Then we moved upstairs for craft time to finish up our Winter Gnomes.

On Tuesday, the weather vane craft continued to be a big hit, and we were able to use it to jot down some data points on our Weather Log. The children had a lot of fun playing with the mini-flower pots and used them to organize animals and plant cuttings for play restaurants and shops. We also started to fill in the coloring page of hours for the 1000 Hours Outside worksheet. Each day’s class is going to see who gets the most hours. So far Monday and Wednesday are ahead!

On Wednesday, we had a wonderful afternoon of outdoor play. We alternated between helpful garden tasks like cutting garden scraps into small pieces for the compost bin, with active games like garden hide and seek. We also noticed that some of our bulbs are already starting to sprout with the mild weather. Inside the Society worked on winding yarn into balls in a little knitting circle, did some weaving and one member made a magic wand—a perennial favorite!