News

Happy spring ephemeral season! After most snow melts and before the overarching tree leaves fully develop, these plants take advantage of the brief window of sunshine. Play Spring Ephemeral Bingo to see how many spring ephemerals you can find! Download the bingo board here.

Marsh Marigold is indeed a plant of wet places, but is in the buttercup family. The flower’s petal-like sepals look shiny gold to us, while the center appears an ultraviolet “bee purple” to pollinating insects.

Dutchman’s Breeches are named for their resemblance to tiny yellow-belted pants hanging on the line. Squirrel Corn gets their name from the yellow, corn-like underground corms (storage structures) on their roots. Squirrel corn is closely related to Dutchman’s breeches, but their flowers have more rounded lobes and no yellow belt. The feathery finely-cut leaves of the two plants are nearly indistinguishable. 

Spring Beauty flowers have brilliantly striped petals – landing pattern lines for pollinating insects to the source of nectar at the base of each petal. The petal color ranges from white to deep pink. While the darker flowers are more attractive to pollinating bees, the chemicals that cause the flowers to turn white protect them from herbivores. Get close to take a whiff of their delectable scent!

Red Trillium is also known as Stinking Benjamin for the foul odor that attracts flies to pollinate their fetid flowers, although the flies are rewarded with neither carrion nor nectar.

Trout Lily is named for their mottled leaves that resemble the dappled Brook Trout. Trout Lily reproduces mostly through vegetative means – look for their double-leaved plants with flowers in sometimes massive clonal colonies.

According to the doctrine of signatures (philosophy that a plant could cure the body part it resembled) – hepatica’s evergreen leaves could heal the liver – hepatitis is Greek for liver. Often the earliest wildflower to appear on the forest floor, Hepatica have protective hairs on their buds and stems to protect them from the cold temperatures of early spring. Their coloring of white to pink to indigo seems to be genetic. 

Wild Ginger gets their name from their spicy root. Emerging flies are attracted to the decomposing flesh-colored flower and enter the flower to escape the early spring cold and dine on the pollen (although flies have not been confirmed to pollinate the flowers). 

Blue cohosh is named for their cobalt blue fruit-like seeds and “cohosh” is attributed to the Algonquin word for “rough” referring to the texture of the roots. Blue cohosh flowers attract flies with the rotting-meat-colored flowers. 

Bloodroot gets their name from their red sap. A single leaf hugs the bud in on cold days to protect them like a blanket. 

Here is the perspective of Jenn Grant, volunteer at Fayston Elementary School and Brookside Primary School:

“When my daughters were young, one of their favorite things to do with their grandmother (my mom) was “Nature Club.”  All the grandkids would assemble for a nature-themed activity for a few hours. Several decades later, I enjoyed dreaming up activities to do with my own grandkids.  Our favorite was a scavenger hunt in the woods to find our list of items.  

When I heard about Four Winds, I knew it was the perfect way for me to volunteer in my retirement. I get to go into the classrooms of my four grandkids and teach them about really cool things without having to dream them up myself!  And, I am always amazed by how much I learn, too.  

Inevitably, when I walk down a hallway in one of the schools with the Four Winds puppet stage, kids passing by will ask when we are coming to their class. It’s truly something they all look forward to.  

I would really encourage other grandparents to volunteer with the program. Even if they don’t have grandkids in elementary school, being with all that youthful energy and enthusiasm is refreshing.”

“Puddles are one of the most wonderful play materials that nature can provide. It is wonderful to see children meet a puddle for the first time and see it with such awe and wonder.” -Dr. Claire Warden, educator and author of Learning with Nature

Celebrate the Week of the Young Child by playing in puddles! Where is the deepest spot? What floats in the puddle? Mark the circumference and depth of the puddle and observe changes over time. Make puddle soup. Splash!

Here are some books to foster puddle play:

What is this burst of orange in the leafless April forest? 

Scarlet Elfcup radiates from the leaf litter, a harbinger of spring! This mushroom grows on fallen branches from deciduous trees. Around one or two inches across, it is finely suited for an elven goblet. Try blowing on the cup; if it is in just the right stage of maturity, you might see and hear the release of a spore cloud!

Later on in the spring and summer, be on the lookout for a similarly colored tiny mushroom, only ¼ to ¾ inch wide, growing on decaying wood. The dark hairs around the edges give this mushroom its name – Eyelash Cup! 

The Canadian Paediatric Society recently released new recommendations that emphasize the importance of unstructured outdoor play for children’s physical, mental, and social-emotional development.

They state that free outdoor play, with naturally challenging and creative opportunities, is inherently risky. In risky play children can recognize and evaluate a challenge and decide on a course of action based on personal preference and self-perceived skill. Adults should mitigate hazards (where the potential for injury is beyond the child’s capacity to recognize or manage it) and use language to promote awareness and problem solving. They suggest these phrases to enhance a ‘teaching moment’ during risky play:

Do you feel … stable on that log of wood / the heat of that fire?

Do you see … your friends nearby / how high you are?

Notice how … these rocks are slippery / sharp this tool is.

Are you feeling … scared / excited / safe?

What’s your plan … if you jump on that boulder / dig that hole?

How will you … get down / go up / get across?

The Canadian Paediatric Society encourages pediatricians to add outdoor free play to their ‘clinical toolbox’ to help prevent or manage obesity, anxiety, and behavioral issues.

How can you get a bunch of 1st graders excited about shapes? Take them outside to build! 

First, they’re on the hunt for the perfect stick, leaf, or pinecone to bring to their building spot. Next, they work on rearranging parts to make their shape look just right. Finally, they take a lap around the shape museum after the building is complete to see everyone’s shape showpieces!

On a recent morning at Barrington Elementary School, enthusiasm radiated from each first grader as they tried to make a trapezoid with parallel sides or break a stick to make their square just right. They found triangles were the easy shape, where the circle proved to be a bit tricky. 

The shape museum naturally teaches problem solving, identifying shape attributes, and counting sides and vertices all with the joy of endless possibilities and the unexpected delights of being outside!

Happy mud season!

Four Winds has a guide to creating and outfitting your own mud kitchen, an open-ended outdoor play space to nurture children’s creativity and support their independent play. The guide includes materials to have on hand, the adult role, the benefits of nature-based play, and related books and resources. Check it out here. 

What will you make in your mud kitchen!?

Who is this tiny creature walking atop a snowy streambank? 

An adult winter stonefly is on the move!

Winter stoneflies spend most of their life as nymphs in streams. They have hooks on their legs to cling to rocks, finger-like gills to absorb oxygen (their small gills make them sensitive to pollution), and cutting mouthparts to eat midge larvae, mayfly nymphs, and other stream insects.

Winter stonefly nymph

On sunny days around January through April, winter stonefly nymphs crawl through cracks in the ice and snow coating their watery homes. They shed their skin a final time and emerge as winged adults, still with two long tail filaments. Winter stonefly adults have a mix of antifreeze compounds (glycerol, proteins, and sugars) that allow body fluids to remain unfrozen at temperatures even lower than the nymphs – as low as -40F!

Adults may live just a few days and have one goal – mating. To find each other, males drum their bodies in a specific pattern and females drum in response.

The next day, females drop several thousand eggs into the water, where only a few may land in just the right way under stones to avoid predation and continue the next generation. 

Richardson and Sheffield (2017) found the intervention of noting ‘three good things in nature’ each day for a week leads to increases in nature connection in adults. Harvey et al. (2023) looked at this intervention with children (ages 9-11). The experimental group wrote about three good things they noticed in nature each day over a period of five days. The control group wrote about any three things they noticed each day over a period of five days.

Results showed that nature connectedness was significantly higher for the nature writing group than the control group immediately after the writing task, but not at a 2-month follow up. The nature writing group showed greater increases than the control group in pro-nature conservation behaviors both immediately after and at the 2-month follow up. The researchers suggest that the intervention may need to extend over a longer period of time or be repeated periodically for a sustained increase in nature connection in children.

Harvey, C., Sheffield, D., Richardson, M., Wells, R., (2023). The impact of a ‘‘Three Good Things in Nature’’ writing task on nature connectedness, pro-nature conservation behavior, life satisfaction, and mindfulness in children. Ecopsychology, 15(1), 26-36.

Richardson, M., and Sheffield, D., (2017). Three good things in nature: noticing nearby nature brings sustained increases in connection with nature. PsyEcology, 8(1), 1-32

Freshly rolled snow doughnuts sparkle in the winter bakery. 

Also known as snow rollers, snow bales, or wind snowballs, they only form when the conditions are just right. 

First, an icy layer forms on which new snow can’t stick.

Then, a thin layer of wet, loose snow falls.

Finally, a strong wind blows and scoops up the sticky top snow, tumbling it downwind and downhill. The weak and thin inner layers that are first to form often collapse, leaving the snowballs hollow.

Search for these snow doughnuts in fields or under steep slopes and enjoy this winter treat. What will you make in your snow kitchen to go with the doughnuts?!