We’re getting ready to start our first session of the year, “What Animal Did That?” where children will learn to identify signs of animal activity and learn about the animals that made them. Each week we will cover a different animal species, including insects and spiders, reptiles and amphibians, birds, and mammals. I want to extend a very special thank you to Barbie Hoffman of Leaping Lizard Rescue (www.leapinglizardrescue.com) for giving me several items that I am so excited to share with our Nature Tots kids!  

As you know, we have been getting a ton of rain lately which is so great for our watershed, our plants and animals, not to mention our farmers and vintners! While it’s great to cuddle up indoors on rainy days like these, it’s also a great time for splashing in puddles, finding earthworms, and seeing the beauty of a spider web laced with rain drops. A wonderful book and great reminder of this that I just read is called “The Sense of Wonder” by Rachel Carson. It’s a very short book and the description on the front captures the essence of the book perfectly, “Words and pictures to help you keep alive your child’s inborn sense of wonder, and renew your own delight in the mysteries of earth, sea and sky.” I can highly recommend this book!

Thanks, and hope to see you outdoors!

Stephanie Derammelaere

A really fun activity for teaching your child about what happens underneath the earth and how many rocks (and mountains) were formed is by making your own volcano! Many of the rocks in this area (basalt, rhyolite, and in some areas, obsidian) were formed by volcanic activity.

To create your own volcano, you will need a cardboard box, old newspapers, aluminum foil, wet sand, an empty soup can, 1/4 cup of baking soda, 1 cup of water, 3/4 cup of vinegar, 1/2 cup of dishwashing liquid, 10 drops of yellow food coloring and 10 drops of red food coloring.

Put the box on top of the old newspapers to protect your table’s surface. Line your box with aluminum foil and fill the box with wet sand. Place the soup can in the center of the box. Form the sand around the can into a volcanic cone to complete your volcano. Make sure the can is completely hidden by the sand. 

Then pour the backing soda into the can. Measure out all the parts of the eruption mixture into one large measuring cup. To start the eruption, add the complete eruption mixture into the soup can and watch the lava pour from your erupting volcano! One word of advise…you might want to tell your child that it will be more of a lava “flow” rather than an “eruption”. My son was a little disappointed that our volcano didn’t look quite like the ones we saw in the pictures of the books I showed him about volcanoes!

While it’s great to buy eco-friendly, sustainably-made toys, the ultimate eco-friendly toy is the one that is not new and has not used up any resources – sustainable or not – to produce it. Reusing old games and toys is also a great lesson to children in our “throw away” society that many items can be fixed if broken, given to those less fortunate if no longer used, and vice-versa, can be purchased or borrowed used instead of always buying new. Think about how much waste could be avoided if we acquired many of our children’s toys used versus always buying a new one – not only in producing the toy itself but all the packaging that goes along with it. You can find good used toys at children’s consignment shops like Sweet Pea in Cotati, on Craig’s List, and at garage sales and thrift stores. The Rohnert Park Cotati library has a great used book store with a selection of children’s books. Another idea is doing a “toy swap” among friends.

An added bonus – you’ll be saving money too…not a bad idea in this economy!