Today was a beautiful day! The sunshine was so warm, and the woods kept us cool. When our students arrived, they were given a picture of a Vermont aquatic living thing clipped to their back. They then needed to ask each other yes or no questions about their living thing to try and figure out what they were. This activity we call, Who Am I?. Once many of us went through a few pictures, the second activity of a leaf litter search became available. We found SO MANY worms, and what has to be the world's smallest Red-backed salamander. We also found many mushrooms and fungi too!  

After snack and morning meeting we played a game of Park Ranger in the field. Our themes were, animals that live in the woods and animals that live in the jungle! After these couple of rounds we got ready for our morning adventure. We headed across the road to the RIVER! When we got to our location we paused and talked about our boundaries and our safety. Many of use tried to catch some critters, we caught so many water striders! We also worked on building a bridge to a small little island for friends who were wearing water shoes. It had many forms, but the final product was impressive. This groups communicates and troubleshoots so well together. Our group found this cool caterpillar and I was able to use an app Seek by I Naturalist to identify it! We identified the caterpillar as a Rosy Maple Moth. This app is incredible, it helps to ID plants, animals, and fungi. You can use this app at home, on your own walks to help learn about the world around you and keep record of what you are seeing! 

After lunch we introduced a new game to some friends in the woods, camouflage! We played two rounds of this game before we got started on our afternoon activity. We agreed that we wanted to get back to work on our shelters. We reviewed what is needed for a useful shelter, what materials to use, and good and safe places for our shelters too. Our two teams went right to work. One group noticed that their shelter had shifted a little in the week that went by. This worked together to try and fix it, ultimately coming to the conclusion that they needed to rebuild. It is incredible listening and watch these students listen to each other and work together to accomplish something.  

We ran out of time to go to the Brook, so we agreed that we might pick that as our morning adventure the next week.