Wednesday in the Woods, October 14th

The Day That We Made our First Fire 


It was really fun being out in the woods.  The first thing we did was go to our sit spots.  Red Squirrel noticed that at his sit spot, the sticks were covered up with so many leaves that it was making it hard to see the sticks that he put there.  Turtle saw baby birds calling to their mom.  One student noticed that there were not so many stumps at his sit spot. 


We had a fire outside today. We made a great big fire. We had to get sticks. We needed newspapers first. To start the fire we needed a match.  A match is very hot.  We put things in the fire to see if they would burn. We tried leaves and ferns.  The pine cone took a long time to melt. We could see the fire. Some times it was hard to look at. Blue Jay says when the smoke was going in his eyes, they were burning.  Sometimes we had to move spots to get out of the smoke. We could smell the fire, too.  Our clothes smelled smokey even after we came inside.  By the fire it felt warm.  When the air felt colder, the fire warmed us up. 


In this picture we are cutting up some apples to make apple crisp.  We used the fire to cook with. With a spoon we mixed together flour, oats, and sugar.  Then we put the apples in a dutch oven, put the flour mixture on top, and topped it all with butter.  


We put a pan of apples in the fire to make an apple crisp.  We put some hot sticks on it and then we waited.
When it came out of the fire, it was very hot.  We had to wait for it to cool down a little.  Some kids said they burned their tongues. Some kids did not like the apple crisp and some kids did.


We used the magnifying glasses to look at the leaf.  You don't put the magnifying glass too close. We saw veins on the leaves.  Veins in your body pump blood from your heart.  Veins in leaves pump water and food to the tree.


We put a leaf under our paper and rubbed the crayon back and forth to try to make a leaf picture.  We could see the leaf veins in our pictures.

We don't have a picture of our other station today.  Mrs. T would count and then we would go find things.  At the end we made a poem:

Forest Treasures

Coyote found some bark,  
it has a hole.
Eastern Box Turtle found a stick,
it has a special blue yarn.
Wood Turtle found a stick,
it looks like a key.
Otter found a leaf,
it is yellow and read.
Newt found a wooden circle,
it can roll.
Woodpecker found a leaf, 
It is yellow and black.
Blue Jay found a hammer,
it looks like a hammer.
Jumping mouse found a leaf,
it is very beautiful.
Bobcat found a stick,
it feels rough.
Squirrel found a piece of bark,
it has a little hole.
White footed deer mouse found a big stick,
I think it looks cool.
Chipmonk found a stick,
it has a rope.
Racoon found a leaf,
it has some cracks and holes.


Woodpecker fell down while she was playing.  Some of the other kids were hugging her.  They were being her best buddies.  Being a best buddy means taking care of someone when they need it.  

The temperature today was 60 degrees.  Some of us felt warm and others felt cold.  We wore jackets.  Some kids brought out gloves and mittens but they didn't have to wear them.  

We had fun!

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