Forest Classroom

Maple Magic

Week 7

We have entered the sweetest season, maple sugaring season! Even though Audubon isn’t tapping our trees and making syrup this year, we can still enjoy the magic it brings and learn about the processes.

As we arrived the sun was shining and the birds were chirping! We enjoyed some wonderful free play time to start off our day, but then had a super fun activity. We all participated in a race! Each of us were given a card with a picture on it, this picture either showed something that a tree uses to make sap or a human uses to make maple syrup. We needed to decide if it was used to make sap or syrup and then run across the field, put in the correct bucket,run back, and get another picture to do it all over again. This was a timed race, and we finished it in 4 minutes and 47 sections, which was great! After we took a minute to rest and catch our breath, we went through the cards and learned what some of the pictures were and got to learn all about the sugaring processes.

Getting ready to run! Photo: Audubon Vermont
Photo: Audubon Vermont

After all the running we were so hungry. We enjoyed snack out on our benches while Sarah and I gave some time to be reminded of our safety rules at Audubon. After we listened we enjoyed a story to finish our snack.

Sarah and I had been told that there were some great mink tracks down by Beaver Pond, so we went on a little journey. On this journey we saw some sap buckets, and those who wanted to safely got to taste the sap. Also on our walk by the river we found what was left of a deer pelt and enjoyed the thawing river. We finally got to muddy mink tracks and tried to follow them through the pond area as best we could. We ended our journey checking on the maple tree we tapped last week for Audubon’s Maple Magic Month. Test your student’s memory and see if you can find the hidden sap bucket, take a photo and post it with #audubonmaplemagic and be entered to win Audubon Vermont Maple syrup.

Photo: Audubon Vermont
Checking to see how much sap is in the bucket. Photo: Audubon Vermont
Found the deer pelt! Photo: Audubon Vermont
Exploring the thawing river! Photo: Audubon Vermont

Before lunch we decided to tap a tree near our bench circle area that we will monitor throughout the following weeks.

Photo: Audubon Vermont

Before we knew it, the day was over and our adults were here to pick us up! Let’s keep up with nice warm winter weather!

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