By Vicki Stittleburg, Environmental Educator & Naturalist
This fall, we had 13 young learners enrolled in our Fledgling Friends program. This interactive program focuses on the aspects of nature that preschool children are likely to encounter in their neighborhoods and at the Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary.
In their first class, students learned about our only native marsupial, the Virginia Opossum. Each child decorated an envelope and several small paper opossums during craft time. To reinforce the concept of marsupials carrying their young in pouches, each child wore the envelope around their waist and it served as a ‘pouch’ to transport their baby paper opossums during our nature walk. Another mammal the children learned about was the Swamp Rabbit. Participants identified lots of rabbit droppings on rocks and logs on the trails and we were delighted to touch a live rabbit that was a special guest from the Nature Discovery Center.
There was a weather theme built into the schedule and everyone enjoyed getting to learn more about the sun, clouds, rain and snow. Children and their caregivers were amazed to learn that the sun is so big, 1 million Earths could fit inside it! Making bracelets with UV beads that changed color when exposed to sunlight was a crowd-pleasing project. Children were introduced to the three main different types of clouds: Cirrus, Cumulus, and Stratus, and had fun using cookie cutters and playdough to add clouds to playdough mats. For rain class, the children played a water cycle game to better understand how water changes form. During craft time, they used Q-tips to paint rain drops. Our snow lesson revealed how snowflakes grow and featured Wilson ‘Snowflake’ Bentley, the first person to photograph a single snow crystal in 1885. Participants were amazed to discover that Houston’s largest snowfall occurred in 1895 when 20 inches of snow fell on Valentine’s Day. The preschoolers relished the opportunity to play in bins of sensory snow which was the closest we could provide to the real thing here in Houston.
Dirt, logs, and leaves were popular topics explored this semester. Students learned that soil and logs are full of life. Children investigated live earthworms and were eager to discover what creatures could be found under rotten logs. During a class on leaves, participants observed the variety of sizes and shapes of leaves and learned why leaves change color in the fall.
Since Houston Audubon is a bird conservation organization, birds always feature prominently in the lessons. Fledgling Friends class fell on Halloween, which seemed like an ideal day to learn about American Crows. Often misunderstood or regarded as spooky, American Crows are actually one of the most intelligent animals on the planet. Children watched a video of a crow solving a multi-step puzzle in order to retrieve a piece of meat; they then tried their hand at building various floor puzzles. The students also learned all about Chickadees and their sophisticated language system. The connection between native plants and healthy bird population was emphasized during this class. Many people were astounded to realize that it takes between 6,000 and 9,000 caterpillars for a pair of chickadees to raise one clutch of young.
The Fledgling Friends class truly becomes a family over the course of the semester and it’s such a delight to get to see the same faces each Thursday morning. Registration for the next session of Fledgling Friends will open in early January and classes will begin January 30th. Email vstittleburg@houstonaudubon.org if you’re interested in signing up!
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