This winter/spring we were fortunate to be able to participate in the Sebago Lake Ecology Center's free program "Little Lake Steward's Story Time" (https://www.pwd.org/little-lake-stewards-story-time; donations go towards loon conservation). We had gone to one session the previous year and loved it, so were excited to be able to attend three sessions this year. This is the best educational program we have brought the boys too; they do such a great job! The two hours sessions are very well thought out, full of engaging activities, and they read wonderful stories.
The first month's class was What Animals Eat (December 19 2014). I messed up on what time it started so we were there half hour early. That worked out find because we got in some extra reading time. My mom was with me to help me out with Link because I wasn't sure how he would do (he's a busy guy).
After reading some stories about animals eating, they did a really fun activity. They got to decide if they were herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores and go pick food to pretend to eat from tables they set up with various examples of food animals around here it.
Then they glued them onto to these heavy duty boards they had prepared for them as an example of their animals diet.
After a couple more topic appropriate children stories, they talked about animal teeth and passed around different animals skulls and tried to figure out what kind of food each animal ate.
The theme of the second month was Winter Water. Link was a wild thing the previous month and distracted Meo quite a bit, so this time he stayed home with Grandma while I took Meo by himself. Things went substantially better this time.
After their first story, all the kids got to pretend to skate around on ice (aka wax paper). They loved this activity.
For a craft, they all decorated their own winter scarves.
Every story time they provide the kids with some grate snacks! It is so generous! Their is usually some fruit, cheese sticks, and Annie's organic crackers or graham crackers.
Then they set up a bunch of little stations for the children to learn about ice and snow.
One station was watching the path made by salt through blocks of ice using colored water.
Another was playing with this really cool pretend snow (it really felt cold!).
And the third was blowing pieces of ice across waxed paper tracks using straws.
They were able to pick up their scarves the following class (or before that if you remembered to drive over to pick it up hehe).
The theme of the third month was Tracks in the Snow. Robbie watched Link at home this time. Meo enjoyed some coloring and silly play time with other kids before story time officially began.
This week they set up various stations that all had photos of animals and some plates with raised pictures of each animals' tracks. Each child had their own little laminated field guide where they could locate the animal they found and do a rubbing of their tracks. Then they had this really cute little field guide to bring home and identify tracks in the snow around their own houses.
After another story, they looked at examples of animal tracks and used clay molds of those tracks in some pretend snow to see how they look.
Finally, they ended class by making their own clay molds of a couple animal tracks to take home and bake, then read one last story.
I am just really so impressed with this program and hope that they are able to do it again next winter. Mattimeo learned a lot and made some really beautiful crafts. I loved that the stories were all wonderful children stories and tied into the lesson plans (I am a sucker for nature themed children's books). I love that 100% of the money people feel like donating goes towards loon conservation. But most of all I love that the story time is helping the children develop an interest and love for nature and giving them all the drive to be little conservationists and help protect nature by embracing it's importance. Thanks again Sebago Lake Ecology Center.
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