We just finished our “What Animal Did That?” Nature Tots session and had a lot of fun exploring different evidence of animal activity, from insects, to birds, to reptiles and amphibians, and finally to mammals.

This is a great time of year to find some tadpoles in some of our neighborhood creeks or ponds and start to watch their transformation into frogs. It is great for preschoolers to witness this miracle metamorphosis themselves. Just remember if you purchase tadpoles through a mail order company, to not release them into our community waterways. They may not be native to our local habitats.

Our next session, called “creepy crawlies” will start on June 17^th and will explore the fascinating world of insects and spiders that make their home in our own backyard. Topics have included the butterfly life cycle, differences between insects and spiders, and how an ant colony works. This class will be taught by Rachel Freed.

Welcome Rachel!

Rachel grew up in Sonoma County, graduated with a degree in Biology from UC Davis and then did some electron microscopy research on hamster brains at UC San Diego before getting a Master’s Degree in Neuroscience from Northwestern University in Chicago. She then transferred to Stanford where she did more graduate research in Neuroscience. After teaching 7th and 8th grade science for a short while, she taught high school chemistry and astronomy for 6 years in the San Jose area and also volunteered at NASA teaching people about Mars and space exploration. She has been a full-time Mom of two for the past 4 years, is tutoring chemistry and is substitute teaching, and is also a volunteer docent at the Robert Ferguson Observatory. Rachel has attended several Nature Tots classes with her own two children and is looking forward to teaching the creepy crawlies class!

Thanks, and hope to see you outdoors!

Stephanie Derammelaere

This month, try making a woodland garden (or terrarium)! Setting up a woodland garden in your home is a great way to get to know some of the native plants in your community up close and personal and it can serve as a temporary home for any moisture-loving animals you’d like to observe for a while.

An old aquarium would make a good container for your garden, or even a very large, wide-mouthed glass jar. Place a layer of gravel, and then a layer of charcoal on the bottom for drainage. Either transplant soil along with the plants you dig up, or you can use a layer of potting mix. Put in some large rocks, and some small logs, trying to make the garden look as natural as possible. To keep the moisture level high, you can cover the aquarium with a sheet of glass or plastic, but make sure to have an alternative cover with holes to use when there are animals in residence. Don’t forget to look up what plants you’ve included and find out their water requirements!

As we are starting to get into the warmer months of the year, thoughts begin to turn to outside activities – beachcombing, hiking, biking, etc. Inevitably, especially with small children, these excursions more than likely will include some kind of picnic or at least a snack! This is a great age to start teaching “leave no trace” principles – leaving an outside area, whether it be a park, the woods, or a beach, exactly how you found it. While this may seem obvious (who is going to litter in front of their impressionable kids?) this also applies to things like orange peels and apple rinds too. Make sure to teach your children why it is important to pick up after themselves (keeping a place beautiful for the next visitor, protecting wildlife, keeping waste out of waterways, etc.) and perhaps even set a good example by picking up trash when you see it.