Snug as a Bug

On Saturday August 8th, we arrived at our garden to find that it was hit relatively hard by the hail storm earlier in the week. Thank goodness we harvested some of our veggies last week! The kids helped us by turning over the soil that had been flatted by the harsh weather. Although this turned mostly into looking for worms, the soil in our garden received the love that it needed.

After a few minutes of turning soil and finding worms, the kids met Judy Marsh from Outdoors In to learn all about bugs. Judy's philosophy is all about learning to care for the environment through experiential learning ie. hands on learning. The first thing she had the kids do was find all the parts of an insect that she hid around the orchard. When the kids brought all the pieces back, they assembled the mystery bug. It was a dragonfly! We learned all about how wonderful dragonflies are for the environment.

Judy also played several games with the kids including 'The Bat and the Moth,' which had a child blindfolded in the circle trying to find another child who was ringing a bell. This game emulated the way a bat uses its superb hearing to look for food at night. She also played a game which had the kids running a relay race as bumble bees getting pollen (tennis balls) from the other side of the park. The children (and adults) had so much fun playing bug games with Judy that they didn't even notice how much they were learning. The time we spent with Judy this morning was awesome.

After all the fun games, our little bugs worked up an appetite and met Laurie on the blanket for a snack and a story. Today's story was about caterpillars, another one of our favourite bugs!

We had so much fun today. We can't wait to see what next Saturday brings.