What a dreary day it’s been!  The nasty wind and rain kept us from taking much of a walk this morning.  In fact, we made it as far as the corner of Bremen and Putnam Streets before we turned around and headed back inside!  Fortunately, we had the always delightful Erin, Grady’s mom, as our parent teacher today.  She always manages to brighten everything up!

Erin prepared a project, along with relevant books, to highlight how the winter season affects animals, both locally and farther away.  She shared two fantastic books with the Tugboats.  One was a guide to birds of the Northeast, complete with recordings of each bird’s song!  The children loved taking turns selecting a page, studying the bird, then pressing the button to hear what it sounded like.  The second book she shared was called Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson.  It tells the tale of a bear who snoozes all winter long while several other woodland animals venture into his cave to throw a dinner party.  The bear is awakened from his slumber by a stray flake of pepper, which causes him to sneeze.  He is finally wide awake just in time for his new friends to fall fast asleep!  The children loved imagining how brave the small animals must have been to sneak into a sleeping bear’s cave and how frightening it must have been when the bear woke up!

After enjoying some new stories, Erin helped us provide some much-needed food for our local birds and squirrels by making feeders!  Rather than use pine cones, which are a more traditional choice for feeders but could hurt the children’s tiny fingers, she brought us bagels.  Not only are they soft, safe vehicles for the animals’ food, but they are also edible themselves!  We divided the Tugboats into 3 small groups at separate tables.  Each child was given one half of a bagel and a a popsicle stick, while there was a bowl of sunflower butter at each table.  The children buttered their own bagels (trying so hard not to eat them!) with their popsicle sticks.  Once the bagels were thickly coated with sunflower butter, they placed them face down into a plate filled with mixed birdseed.  We strung the bagels with natural twine and the feeders are ready to be hung!  I loved this project because it spanned so many important educational domains.  The children practiced patience as they shared bowls of sunflower butter as well as fine motor skills by carefully spreading the butter on their bagels.  They explored concepts in biology and made connections between themselves and animals by imagining how different their lives are during these cold winter months.  Finally, it reinforced one of Harbor City School’s most important concepts: taking care of our community.  The community certainly includes our local animals!