These past few weeks we have been slowing down in the forest. It's amazing the three little words can stop a preschooler in their tracks. It wasn't long before I heard for myself "I spy Fungi". Once we started searching it wasn't hard to find the beautiful fungi on the forest floor. It wasn't long before imaginations started wonder what the fungi was doing. There were families on a walk, meetings, and birthday parties.
One of our goals on our daily walk is to slow down and smell the roses but this is a difficult task for little preschool feet. We are never sure where our friends are headed but almost everyone has energy pouring out of them so if we can find a focus we can encourage a bit of walking. Fungus never fails to slow a speedy preschooler down. We noticed size, color, and the interesting places fungus grows. It comes in all sorts of shapes too!
We even play I Spy Fungi in our play yard! We have some really good hunters and these were found by a few different friends. Being observant is a great skill for little nature scientist. If we can teach children to love nature and the beauty of it then we can begin to teach them to take care of it.
These teeny tiny little guy was found while building log towers. Log towers also teach our friends to slow down and observe. Some of the components to stacking towers is: problem solving, balance, size, placement of logs, size ordering big to small and so much more. The little fungi found here was quit interest once we paused and took a look. Check it out below. It looked a bit like a fuzzy red eyeball.
We found hats, hearts, umbrellas and more. I spy fungi is definitely a favorite among our friends.
We look above and below!
So next time you are walking in the forest slow down and spy some fungi. Open your imagination and wonder who lives under those tiny little umbrellas.
Signing off into the great outdoors!
Mrs. Ann
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