Boy was it great to be back at Forest Playschool.  Emily and Rae couldn’t wait to get the day started outside and play in the snow. Today was super exciting because not only were there some returning faces, but we had a couple new friends joining us!

We played in the snow kitchen making snow strawberry muffins and snow blueberry pie.  Other friends dug away at our large snow pile with Rae! 

We then heard something coming up the hill; it was the Audubon tractor driven by Mark, Audubon’s Conservation Manager. We all ran to the picnic tables and sat in the snow waiting for him to make his way up to us.  We watched him plow a path up to the Office!  We saw him collect all the snow in the bucket and then dump it in a great big pile, perfect for us to play in.

Once all of the tractor excitement subsided we went back to digging a cave in the snow pile. We even broke though and started to make a tunnel!

After playing in the snow for an hour, we went into the nice fire-heated barn to discuss the plan for the day. Since we had some new friends with us, we shared our names and a fun winter story. Emily explained that every Friday we have morning meeting, which will be planned by a different Forest Playschooler each week. This week Emily and Rae planned the day, and they planned a good one.

On Fridays, our Playschoolers have a job to do; they need to fill up the bird feeders! We pulled all the feeders down and one by one filled them all the way up for our bird friends.

We then warmed up and played What Time is it Mr. Fox! Next, Rae led us on a hike, and we ended up following real Mr. Fox tracks that we found in the snow!  We bushwhacked through the woods following the fox tracks and making sure that we didn’t step on them.  We didn’t find a fox den, but we did find some fresh fox pee that he uses to mark his territory.  We knew it was fox because it smells like a mild skunk.

I hope that next week we can continue tracking our fox friends and explore more of Audubon!