Preschool Programs

Beaver Pond and a Snapping Turtle!

Monday Oct 4 and Friday Oct 8

Monday (10/4): Beaver Pond

This morning we got to search for all the leaves and acorns we colored in last week that have now been cut out and laminated! There were 53 total which meant we had a big number to find AND to count. Very impressively, we found and counted them all.

This week our Morning Meeting leader decided we should go on an adventure somewhere we hadn’t been before and the plan became that we would go to Beaver Pond! We ate snack to fuel ourselves up for our long hike and then started down the White Pine Trail on our journey.

Before we arrived at Beaver Pond we had to first cross our Troll Toll Bridge. There’s a troll living under one of the boardwalks here at Audubon and he requires payment in the form of jokes in order for us to cross. Each of our friends were enthusiastic to share their own jokes and make one another laugh.

At Beaver Pond everyone was so excited to immediately begin exploring and playing in the mud. Along the shore of the pond we were able to look through grasses for newts and some friends even built their own mud pies and mud homes.

We ended our day after hiking back for lunch and thank you circle. Everyone was so excited to have explored a new area of Audubon!

Friday (10/8): Beaver Pond

All the leaves and acorns that we colored last week got laminated so we could find them as our morning activity today! We found and counted 53 leaves.

At our morning meeting we decided we wanted to go on a hike to the lower part of the property and to explore Beaver Pond! After snack we started to hike down the White Pine Trail.

Students Hike in woods
Photo: Audubon Vermont

At our Troll Toll, we had to share jokes for the Audubon Troll’s approval before we could cross the bridge. One of our (and the Troll’s) favorites was:

“What’s a scarecrow’s favorite fruit? A STRAWberry!”

Once we were at Beaver Pond everyone was off exploring. At the edge of the water we were finding Eastern Newts and we all got to splash around and have fun in the mud.

Photo: Audubon Vermont
Photo: Audubon Vermont

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During all of this, one of our friends found a baby Snapping Turtle in the grasses!!! This was such an exciting find. Since Snapping Turtles don’t bite yet as babies, we all got the opportunity to hold the turtle and watch him crawl on our hands. Everyone did a great job being gentle and showing us that they could keep flat hands close to the ground to properly handle this critter.

Photo: Audubon Vermont
Photo: Audubon Vermont
Photo: Audubon Vermont

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We hiked back to the upper property for lunch and thank you circle, and with some extra time in our day before pick-up, we got to have a dance party at Forest Camp!! Everyone got to show off their moves and end the week on a super silly note.

Dance party at Forest Camp
Dance party at Forest Camp! Photo: Audubon Vermont

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