Whether from tossed apple cores, seeds of long-gone cider apple groves, or sprouting from scat, apple trees flourish on New England back roads. While many are hard and bitter “spitters,” these apples can add some seasonal delight as a loose part in your playscape. Here are some apple play invitations:
Smash apples! How do the apples transform when you put them in a mortar and pestle? Can you make apple juice?
Try picking up apples with a variety of utensils and transferring them to a range of containers. What sounds do the apples make when they drop in different containers? Do they float? Do they make a splash?
Roll apples! Try making a ramp for them with gutters and tubes. How far can you make them go?
Who are these lint-like white and blue floating fuzzies?
Woolly aphids are on the move! From spring through early fall, woolly aphids are wingless, sucking sap beneath the cover of their “wool.” The “wool” is waxy white strands that make the aphids look more like mold and less appealing to predators. The females produce asexually (parthenogenesis), giving live birth to female aphids.
No males make up the woolly aphid community until decreasing day length at this autumnal time of year signals the females to produce a winged generation of males and females. This adds genetic diversity to the aphid population and also allows the females to switch to laying winter-hardy eggs. Another all-female generation of woolly aphids will hatch in the spring and continue the cycle.
Jelly babies and chicken lips, elfin saddles and pink fringed fairy cups, velvety fairy fans and black earth tongues, cat’s tongues and bear’s head tooth lie in the woods around us. Be on the lookout for these fantastically-named fungi and create your own names!
Jelly babyChicken lips, or green jelly dropsElfin saddlePink fringed fairy cup, or shaggy rose gobletVelvety fairy fan, or spatula mushroomBlack earth tongueCat’s tongue, or toothed jelly fungusBear’s head tooth
Here is the perspective of Karly Wilcox, Four Winds Nature Educator in Strafford County, NH:
Rope is an amazing tool to spark creativity, imagination, and ingenuity. In four days at Barrington Nature Camp, students ranging from kindergarten to 5th grade were inspired by the possibilities of rope. Given unstructured time in the forest, students chose to work non-stop creating with rope. The rope transformed into a home, a line to follow, an obstacle course, a horse’s rein, a tightrope, a place to hang shirts, and fire.
The best part of all these ideas and creations? They were all student driven. Problems came up: rope too loose, too tight, too high, too low, how to tie it, how to untie it, how to make it stretch to the next tree? Students worked through these problems by communicating with one another and by trial and error. They beamed with pride as they accomplished their goals without adult help. As an adult looking on, it was inspiring. More rope will surely be involved in my nature based play and learning in the future!
The sun has shown on the earth and the goldenrod is his fruit.
– Thoreau
It is the time of year to bask in the golden glow of goldenrod blooms. Take a close look at goldenrod these brilliant late summer days.
Notice just how many flowers goldenrod is made up of – what appear to be individual flowers are actually groups of many smaller flowers (a characteristic of the Aster family to which goldenrods belong). Goldenrod is composed of disk flowers with five distinct petals surrounded by a ring of ray flowers with seemingly one petal (actually fused petals).
Group of goldenrod flowers in the middle surrounded by the individual flowers of another flower group. Note the five-petaled disk flowers to the left and seemingly one-petaled ray flowers to the right
Goldenrod has an unfounded reputation of causing hay fever. However, its heavy, sticky pollen is meant to attach to pollinators, not disperse in the wind. (Many who suffer from allergies in autumn know that ragweed blooms at about the same time as goldenrod, thus the confusion.) According to entomologist and ecologist Doug Tallamy, goldenrod is “one of the best herbaceous native perennials for attracting and feeding wildlife.” Tallamy’s research shows the genus Solidago supports over 100 species of moths and butterflies. Bees, wasps, beetles, ants, flies, and spiders also dine on goldenrod and feed on the creatures that are feasting on goldenrod. Goldenrod is one of the most important flowering plants for honeybees to build up stores of honey for winter.
A bird was taking a dust bath! Especially in the summer, birds from turkeys to ruffed grouse and house wrens to house sparrows “bathe” in dirt. They scrape a depression with their feet and nestle in on their belly – wiggling, rubbing, flicking, and flapping. After their feathers and skin are covered with dirt, they stand up to shake off and preen. Dust sticks to dry skin and absorbs excess oil. Research has shown birds who weren’t able to take dust baths had oil build up on their feathers. The dust also may help remove feather parasites such as lice and mites.
While spider eggs are always covered in silk, each species makes a characteristic silken sac. Embark on an egg search and get a glimpse of the diversity of our spider neighbors!
Many orbweavers attach their fluffy egg sacs to vegetation.
Goldenrod crab spider mothers guard their white, smooth egg sacs nestled in vegetation.
Wolf spiders carry their spherical egg sacs on their spinnerets (silk-producing organs). After the spiderlings hatch, they cling to mother’s abdomen hairs and their siblings to get a piggy-back ride.
Yellow garden spiders make papery pouch-like sacs that are suspended by tough silken threads.
Pirate spiders suspend their tear-drop shaped egg sacs covered in coarse, curly silk.
Some long-jawed orbweavers hang a rounded bag of egg sac from a horizontal line of silk.
A nursery web spider mother carries her egg sac in her mouth before creating a nursery web to hang her spherical egg sac. The mother spider defends the spiderlings over a week until they go through their first post-hatch molt.
From Joanne Pye, retired Early Childhood Educator and Administrator, and visionary and mentor for Four Winds’ Knee High Nature program:
“When I’m with children, which I try to be as much as possible, we spend our time together outdoors. It’s where they want to be and so do I. There’s so much to do in these unstructured environments outside. I follow their lead. I notice and think about where they are finding joy. How can I tickle their interest in the natural world? What stories are they telling and what questions are they asking? Is there something I’ve got on hand, some tool maybe, that might add to what they’re doing?
Our play together is centered around the child or children, and around what the season, nature, the place all have to offer. It’s fluid and different each time. I think about what is piquing the child’s interest and what I could do to support their growth and learning. And their happiness. Children learn naturally by observation and exploration.”
Who is the brown-covered creature making holes in this tomato leaf?
This is a tortoise beetle larva under the cover of the critter’s own fecal shield! The larvae are able to aim their frass so it lands atop their forked last abdominal segment where it forms a protective poo parasol. Acting as a chemical deterrent, the fecal shield wards off ants, spiders, and other predators.
Tortoise beetles get their name from their expanded and often transparent elytra (hardened beetle forewings) that cover much of their head and legs, like a tortoise shell.
