Friday (10/15): 

This Friday was all about Pumpkins and Peeper Pond! As our friends arrived in the morning, mini pumpkins were hidden throughout the front yard. After we found and counted all the pumpkins that were hiding, we practiced sorting them into groups by color and size. We even (unsuccessfully) tried to make a pumpkin pyramid.

After Morning Meeting and snack we got to move onto our next pumpkin activity of the day—carving! We split into two groups to design and carve our pumpkins. In groups we decided what shapes we wanted on our pumpkins for our eyes and noses. We had to decide if we wanted our pumpkins to be smiling and how many teeth we wanted to be seen in their smiles. One of our groups even gave their pumpkin eyebrows!

After we designed the pumpkins, everyone got the chance to scoop out pumpkin goops. This goop was the inspiration for one of our pumpkin names—Gloppy. The other pumpkin was aptly named Creepy.

Once our pumpkins were carved and displayed on the steps of the barn, we got ready to hike down to Peeper Pond. At Peeper Pond, we worked together to disperse milkweed seed and to search for even more seed pods. We had so much fun making it look like “snow” with all the milkweed fluff in the air.

Before we hiked back for lunch, we also got to play a round of “What Time is it Max the Fox?”. It was a great day of fall fun and we are so excited for the new jack-o-lanterns decorating the Audubon Center!

Monday (10/18): 

This morning started with a bear search around the front yard. We were so excited to be back after having missed a Monday for the holiday the week before!

After Morning Meeting and snack we moved on to our fun fall activity—pumpkin carving! We all sat on the porch to design our jack-o-lanterns together. We had to decide what shapes we wanted for the eyes and nose and what our mouth would look like—including the shape of the teeth and how many. We ended up with a smiling jack-o-lantern named “Rainbow”. Rainbow has triangle-shaped eyes and a matching triangle-shaped nose, three pointy teeth, and some eyebrows. Everyone was so excited to set Rainbow on the stairs outside the barn.

Once Rainbow was finished we set off on the adventure our Morning Meeting Leader had planned for us today—we were hiking to Peeper Pond! We got to observe the bright reddish orange colors of changing sumac leaves and as we walked together around the pond we listened to the sounds of Blue Jays and practiced making our own calls. Friends noticed mushrooms on the ground and we noted that they were mostly yellow and brown.

After our hike back up to Forest Camp for lunch we were caught in the rain and so we ended our day with coloring in the barn to warm ourselves up.