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I have a chapter book that is special” – J

Dear Oak,

You found green fruit on the ground. It was split open. I thought it might be from an almond tree. I wonder what you thought it was. We were on our adventure walk. We’d gone East towards where the sun shines in the morning. Then we headed North over the bridge with no water beneath.

The grass was too tall to go further that way because we wouldn’t have been able to see our feet or our scared rattlesnake cousins hiding in the tall grass. So we turned back. We passed the amphitheater and went towards where the horse was and the tall mounds of mulch. You climbed the gate. I climbed the mulch. We all climbed the mulch.

Then we went to the pond and looked across the water towards the Goose Toilet. There were no geese, but there were lots of our tree swallow family swooping and diving. We went down to the Goose Toilet. We watched out for Miss Sneaky Oak who is poisonous and sings, “This is my space.”

On the way back, we found the tree with the green fruit. You collected as many as you could hold from around the bottom of the tree. I picked one for each of you. Papa John thought they might be walnuts. I wonder.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Monster Truck” – E

Dear Mulberry,

First, you found three spiders where we keep the cardboard and the paper for drawing, writing and making. I wondered if they were sisters. You thought the smallest one was the baby. Then you noticed more spiders.

There were three spiders living up in the rafters, one spider in each of the between spaces. Mama Stephanie thought they each had their own apartment. Maybe they were neighbors.

There were two more spiders you found in the Safe Area. These were in the corner by the bathroom, a small one living in a web above a larger spider. They were all long-bodied cellar spiders. These spiders carry an egg sac with as many as 60 eggs in the sac in their mouth until their babies hatch. Maybe they were all sisters.

I wonder if you and your grownup know a story about these spiders.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Oak,

Daddy Cockroach died today. Someone scooped sand on top of him. Another person suggested that we put a rock and flowers on top like in the book. One person put a small rock on top. Others decorated with leaves from Grandma Mulberry and pine needles from the Pine Siblings.

In the meantime, one of you had gotten a large stone. It was big and heavy. They added it on top. Then the others wanted to add more decorations, more leaves and needles and sand. They found a stick and rain gutters to add to the burial.

They began adding sand around the base of the stick to get it to stand. They added more and more sand. Then they found wet sand and added it. Others helped. While we worked on Daddy Cockroach’s grave, we remembered Daddy Cockroach and how he liked blueberry pancakes. Someone sang.

Later, we believe that we met Mama Beetle on the ramp. Maybe she was going home to take care of the babies.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Mulberry,

We all have different ways of communicating what we want and what we don’t want. We all are learning how to get our wants met and our don’t wants understood. We all say in one way or another, “I want that,” or “I don’t like that.”

Some of us use words. Some of us use our faces. Some of us use our bodies. And some of us use all three at once. And some of us use one or two of the three at one moment and another way another moment.

Here’s a game. Imagine you and another person have no words. Try saying either, “I want that,” or “I don’t like that” with your face only. Now with your body only. The other person has to guess what you want or don’t like. Now, it’s their turn, and you guess.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Oak,

You decided to make a fire on top of Rainbow Mountain today. You gathered the big stones in a circle to contain the fire. Fire is hungry. She will eat whole neighborhoods, houses, cars, trees, plants and whole forests. So you built a circle of stone to keep her small.

You gathered tinder and rubbed sticks together to bring fire. Then you fed her small sticks to help her grow inside the circle. Later, you added logs. When fire had turned the wood to ash and was at her hottest, you put on a pot of arroz con pollo with some greens to cook.

You were the fire tender. Someone needs to guard the fire to make sure she stays in her circle, that she doesn’t go out before the food is done, and that she is out cold before you walk away. Fire is hungry, so someone always watches her. We ask the fire tender before adding wood to make her grow or making fire soup to be sure she is out, not even the smallest, tiniest, speck of ember left. Fire is hungry, so the fire tender is careful to make sure she is all the way out.

To make fire soup, you add water. Someone added the water when you said. Steam and smoke billowed and rose. We put our hands over where the fire had been. We could still feel the heat, so we added more water. We used a stick to stir and stir. We felt. Still warm. We added and stirred until we could put our hands in the ashes. There was no hot in the ashes anywhere.

Our hands were black with soot, so we washed them.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Oak,

Today, there was a dead bird. Lynne found the bird. It was at the base of a tree. We looked at it and took care for this little dead bird. The bird had lived and flown. It was a girl nuttall woodpecker. The boy has a red head.

We learned that she eats insects. She likes termites, ants, and spiders. She pokes acorns into the holes that she drills in oak trees, creating long term food storage for her whole family. We hear her sisters in the trees working, working.

Someone made up a woodpecker song and sang to her. It was beautiful and so was she.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Mulberry,

We’d sung goodbye. We’d talked about the day. There were only four of us left, two grownups and two children. Everyone else had gone. One grownup went back to get something they’d forgotten, and the three of us decided to play a game.

One person chose Ring Around the Rosie. We sang. We walked in a circle. And we FELL DOWN. We lay where we fell and looked up. There was Grandfather Oak, so, so old. Look at how high Grandfather Oak’s branches climb and twist. Look how wide Grandfather Oak’s branches twist and reach.

I sat up, and the two of you stayed put there on our Earth, on your backs, looking up. I’d sat up too soon, so I lay down again. You said that you could lay there forever. That sounded lovely.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Oak,

Sister Tree grows too close to the fence and too close to our neighbor’s house. You asked me to feel her leaves. They felt like velvet, so soft, and she’s so strong. She’s sneaky too.

You were pulling off her leaves. Other plants might die if we take too many of their leaves, but not Sister Tree. Along with the sun, that’s how most plants feed themselves, get energy. Sister Tree feeds herself and bugs too with her leaves, but she is strong. Even if you pull off all her leaves, she will grow back.

We looked, and we noticed that new tree trunks were beginning to grow from an old stump of Sister Tree. She’s so strong that even if you cut her down, she grows back.

And she will send her roots out under ground and grow again from a new spot. Sneaky. We found some tiny green leaves sprouting off a tiny slender trunk, and we decided to see if they belonged to Sister Tree too.

We dug and dug, and you know what? Her root grew thicker than her trunk and longer and longer. We never did find the end. Sneaky Sister Tree. It’s like she has super invincible powers.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Mulberry,

We met Worker Ant carrying another insect. We met Sister Beetle hurrying and scurrying to get underneath the Magnatiles. I think maybe Sister Beetle was worried about being seen. She was a very small beetle. I think she was trying to hide. At one point, she scurried right off the table.

It was a very long fall for such a small beetle, but she righted herself and kept right on going. The unfortunate thing is that she kept trying to hurry right under our feet. I felt sad. Sister Beetle got smushed. We thanked Nature for Sister Beetle and her help, for being a vital food source for the birds. Did you know that she is also a decomposer and recycler, pollinator, and pest controller?

When you start noticing, there’s a whole world of insects right there, aunts, uncles, mamas, papas, grandparents, our earth-sharing insect family. It’s fun to notice with you.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

P.S. We also found this cool bug with yellow stripe-like colors. I think this bug dresses up like a bee or a yellow jacket that stings to say, “Hey, I need space!” I used a picture to try to figure out what kind of bug it was. I discovered that it’s likely an ichneumon wasp, and they are even better at pest control than spiders. Most don’t sting. Thank you little wasp.

Dear Oak,

Daddy Cockroach was in a hurry. Did you see how fast he moved? He was on the way to get food for his children. He has 100 babies. He was going to In and Out to get burgers and fries. Sally, the youngest of all his children, really likes tomatoes. Freddy, the oldest of all Daddy Cockroach’s children, really likes pickles.

Love,
Teacher Michelle