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

Whew! We are all probably looking forward to the rain letting up a bit, with youngsters stuck indoors a lot lately! While we’ve enjoyed splashing in the puddles, we definitely look forward to some more sunny days ahead!

One recent outdoor activity I recently did with my kids which they had a lot of fun with, and wanted to do again and again, was to build “fairy houses” to attract woodland or garden fairies. This doesn’t need to be very complicated.  In the woods we just found a spot in the middle of a ring of trees that looked like a perfect place for a fairy house. We propped up sticks and bark against a corner and then covered it with moss and lichen and decorated with little pinecones and acorns. They had so much fun with this they wanted to build one in our garden the next day.

Making a woodland fairy house!

Our first class of the season will start on March 3, and is called “The Senses”. In this session we will explore our senses as we learn each week how we can use all of our five senses in the outdoors to learn about nature. Children will discover how we can learn much more about our environment besides just looking at it, in this hands-on session that will especially focus on hearing, smelling, and feeling the world around us.

Thanks, and hope to see you outdoors!

Stephanie Derammelaere

Happy Holidays!

While I encourage getting your children outdoors, even in winter and even in the rain for some puddle jumping, earthworm exploring, fallen-leaf hunting, etc. I have to admit there are days “when the weather outside is frightful, and inside is so delightful” (to quote the line from the “Let it Snow” song), and hanging out in a nice heated house seems a lot more enjoyable than getting everyone bundled up to go outside. On those days, you could try to get some nature indoors and perhaps work on some of those crafts you never seemed to find time to do at other times of the year. Especially at this time of year during the holiday season when many of us are bringing nature into the home anyway to celebrate the season (i.e., Christmas trees, evergreen boughs and wreaths, poinsettias, and pinecones, just to name a few), it is a lot of fun for little ones to participate in this decorating by making their own crafts. Some ideas include:

• Decorate pinecones with glitter glue or glitter added to paint, and tie a ribbon on them to hang from a Christmas tree or elsewhere around the house.

• Make miniature wreaths from tiny hemlock cones glued to cardboard shapes.

• Tie together bundles of cinnamon sticks and sprigs of dried herbs with velvet ribbon.

• Make orange or lime pomanders.

• Make “snow”-covered pinecone ornaments. Wind some wire around the cones and dip them into wallpaper paste (parents need to supervise this step). When the paste feels tacky, dip the cones into white laundry powder. Shake off the excess. Let dry before you decorate them with some ribbon.

• Make nature-inspired candle holders. Glue a candle onto a flat piece of wood and glue on small pinecones, small pieces of evergreen, and red berries around the candle. This can be made even more child-friendly by adding a “fake” (battery-operated) candle that can be found at craft stores.

I’d love to hear your ideas as well! If you have any good ones to share, please email me at stephanie@naturetots.org. In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday season and a happy New Year!

Thanks, and hope to see you outdoors!

Stephanie Derammelaere