Prairie Exploration

Last week, we had the pleasure of exploring our prairie with a discovery box from the Minnesota Wildlife Refuge in Bloomington.  

The buffalo costume was, by far, our favorite part of the discovery box.

 

 When I asked the children what a prairie was, I knew I was in for a fun week.

A prairie is...

"another word for a maze."

"kind of like ears."

"a type of animal - maybe with a tail."

"a kind of zoo."

"a type of monster, but not a scary one."

"a thing in books that we look at, I think horses live there."

"where the water goes when it rains."

"grass - BIG grass."

"My mom is allergic to prairies."

We went out to our small, onsite prairie to measure how tall our prairie grasses and flowers were.

We also discussed the length of the roots of prairie plants below the surface of the soil.  Some prairie plants can have roots that are 15-20 feet long!

We then painted a beautiful mural to show the length of prairie plant roots.  Check it out!

An A-MAZing time!

As a new addition to our Applepalooza Event for the Pre-2 students, we built a hay bale maze.  I had lots of help planning the design of our maze.

 After our maze was planned, we started the hard work of building the maze.  We took hay bales from the hay barn, and, with the help of a wagon, hauled them over to the log cabin where the maze was being built.

Here is a "time-lapse" of the maze being built!  We had so much fun!

Potato Harvest!

One of my favorite vegetables to harvest from the garden with children has to be potatoes.  The excited look on their face when they first see the potato under the soil is priceless!

Check out the photos below from our potato harvest in the Lower Maka!

Welcome back!

We are so excited to be back in school!

The first thing we did was to go exploring in the woods!

We also found some yummy fruits and vegetables growing
 in the garden!

Looking forward to another great year!