Seasons South and North

What to Look for in June in the Southern and Northern Hemispheres

 

June is the month of one of the summer/winter solstices. In the ancient Cornish language of southwestern England, it was known simply as "the summer month". In June in Britain one can see that:

• Squirrels are born - look for their nests high in trees
• The feathers of Mallard Drakes change to resemble those of the females - look for them in the ponds and lakes
• Swifts lay their eggs
• Carps spawn
• Dozens of different moths appear: Gothic moth, Goat moth, Lappet moth, Brown moth, Heart and Dart moth, Riband Wave moth, Scarlet Tiger moth
• Just about everything flowers: Lady's Fingers, Lady's Mantle, Elder, Cow Parsnip, Dogwood, Lavender, Stinking Mayweed!

        
 

 In the Atlantic Rainforest of southern Brazil, it is winter, and the temperature can drop to zero degrees celsius. The weather is wet and foggy, the rainforest dripping and sunless on many days. Now is the time the hummingbirds will come to the feeders, for there are fewer nectar-bearing flowers blooming. Yet there is much to observe in nature:

• The beautiful Orsis Bluewing butterfly (above) is seen
• Paraná pines are dropping their huge seedballs, and monkeys are eating the seeds
• The Azure Jay also eats the seeds, and buries some for later in the season. The ones he forgets to dig up  grow into trees (below)
• Lacewing katydids are about

 

June is a month of wonderful observations for the Nature Observation Chart, whatever the hemisphere. 

The drawings of the butterfly and the jay come from the pages for the month of June in 

The Big Field : a Child's Year Under the Southern Cross

©2010 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

What to Look for in May in the Southern and Northern Hemispheres

 

May is such a busy and eventful month that I am very late with this post about observing nature, month-by-month, in two locations. Britain in the northern hemisphere and the Atlantic Rainforest of Brazil in the southern hemisphere.

True to form, in Europe and Britain, this May has been a "changeable May", with weather as cold as deep winter and as hot as the peak of summer. Yet, even at its coldest, when children were despairing that spring would ever come, young birds were coming to the feeders and flowers were blooming, showing them that the changes in seasons are not about the day-to-day changes in weather, but about the changes in the amount of daylight and overall warmth.

What you may see in Britain in the month of May is a flood of life too great to list here, but some of it may be that:

• Moles are active
• Red deer and roe deer are born
• Sheep will be shorn
• Many birds build their nests: blackcaps, bullfinches, cirl buntings, corn buntings, garden warblers, the hobby falcon, jackdaws, house martins, sandpipers, swifts: This is the month to look out for nests!
• Nightjars arrive
• Plenty of insects arrive for the tasty pleasure of all those building birds: apple suckers, bee flies, moths, butterflies, dragonflies, the delightful hummingbird hawk moth
• Among the many flowers, you will see: barberry, black  bryony, black medick, bugle, cleavers, holly, honeysuckle, lilac, scarlet pimpernel, sweet chestnut, yellow iris

What you may see in the southern Atlantic Rainforest of Brazil, where it is autumn and getting cold and wet and foggy, includes:

• Green parakeets in flocks (above)
• Kapok seeds tumbling to the ground and bursting open (the silk within contains the seeds that the green parakeets love) 
• Giant brown moths in swarms
• Falling leaves everywhere
• Many varieties of the helicon butterfly (below)

 

Remember to use the free Nature Observation Chart to keep track of all that you see.

©2010 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

Slowing Down in Winter

 
 

In the northern hemisphere, it is late autumn moving into early winter. Winter is a time of rest, of quiet, for some animals, of hibernation. 

Would our children know that? They live, for the most part, in cities, protected from the extremes of weather. We have power to keep us warm when it is cold, to keep it light when it is dark. Families race to skiing holidays or beach holidays at all times of the year. Children watch television and play electronic games at all hours. Yet our bodies follow still the rhythms of nature. We are more tired and grumpy when we have to move about in the cold and the dark; we become ill more easily when we are tired and cold. In many ways, we are living at odds with our physical world. Helping children to understand seasonal changes and how they affect us may help them to relax and accept certain changes in themselves, as well as those around them.

The Bear's Life

The bear is the star example of a creature whose life follows closely the seasonal changes. By following the bear's life through the year, children can learn about the seasons as well as nature.

Craft Aspect - Back to the Felt Board

Using this fine silhouette from Karen's Whimsy, with thanks, cut out a large felt bear:

 

 

Consider if you want it to be brown or black, as relates to what once roamed where you now live. Then, cut out from grey or brown, a large cave into which the bear can fit. You may wish to do another bear, curled in sleep.

Teaching - Repetition

When I was a schoolgirl of about eight or nine years, I had a teacher named Mrs. Doctorman who, every single morning, made us stand beside our desks and sing brightly:

Good morning to you! 

Good morning to you!

We're all in our places

With sunshiny faces

And this is the way

To start a new day.

Because we were young, we accepted it. In later years, I thought it was tacky beyond belief. In truth, it worked. She smiled, we smiled, and everyone got down to their tasks. The Bear's Life can be just such a morning repetition, focusing on what the weather is and what the bear would be doing. Encourage the children to pretend to eat lots and lots and LOTS of berries when the bear would be storing energy for the winter sleep, to stretch and pat their places when the bear would be settling down in the cave, to put their heads down and snore when the bear is hibernating. Do not do all of this in a morning, but in phases over many mornings. 

Extend the Teaching

If possible, visit a zoo's bear enclosure many times during the year to see how their behaviour changes. 

Read bear stories about real bears' lives, not those with bears acting like people. We have put some suggestions in a list in the column to the right: A Few Good Books About Bears.

This activity should go the year round, for only then will children, especially city children, gain a deep understanding of nature's changes.

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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Seasons in the Soil

 When I was a child, my friends and I used to spend hours chatting and absent-mindedly picking up a handful of soil and letting it filter through our fingers and back to the ground. Over and over again, we allowed ourselves the idle sensuality of feeling loam flow over our fingers. It was a beautiful rich sensation, as if velvet has been crumbled.

Now I know that there was a universe of life, hundreds and thousands of tiny creatures in each handful. It has been estimated that the number of creatures in a single acre of healthy soil exceeds that of all the people living today so, more than 6 billion. In an acre!  Some of those microscopic creatures we hardly know anything about and there are some that we understand quite well. Perhaps my scooping hand went near one of the many larger creatures that make their home underground, such as a toad or a mole or a snake. 

 In truth, most of those millions who live in the earth live between the soils, in tunnels and air pockets, burrows and dens. Even the smallest creatures live in tiny spaces between the soils. All of them, even those deep down, have their responses to the seasons. They will rise toward warmth, go back down to cooler regions when the surface is too hot, rise for for food, go back down again when the surface freezes and it is comparatively warmer below. When the rains come, they may drown by the millions, as their tunnels and pockets are filled with water. If the soil is covered with concrete or tarmac, seasons, water and air are cut off and they all die.

In some parts of the northern hemisphere, farmers refer to the soil as "sleeping" during the winter, when it seems less alive. They speak of the earth "awakening" in the spring, when it warms and the life comes closer to the surface.  When every creature in it has been killed and nothing can grow in it, they say the soil has "died". Children need to know this feeling of soil that is healthy and alive, soil that is sleeping or awakening.  If you have a place where they can garden, allow them the extra time to play with the soil, to learn its feel. Help them to try to find some of the creatures that live in it.

Soil on the Nature Table 

For the hyperactive in your group, by all means, invest in an ant farm to sit on the nature table. From the garden supply shop, get a small amount of composting worms to keep on the table and feed and discuss. Even the squirmiest child will stop his or her own squirming to watch these creatures' movements.

For a Craft activity - have the children draw worms and cut them out. Place a bit of brown felt shaped into mounds like the earth on the nature table and place the children's worms under the mounds. Move the insects toward the surface on warmer days.

Some books about the soil and its creatures:

Life in the Soil

This is a serious read, and a bit heavy in places, but excellent for a full understanding of the latest knowledge about what creatures live in the ground.

Living Earth

This is an older book, and an easier read. It is still quite useful as a basic starter on the subject.

Life in a Bucket of Soil

This is a Dover book, clean, simple and clear, with good drawings. An older child could read it on his or her own.

Microlife That Lives in Soil

A children's non-fiction book, with photographs of microscopic animals, drawings, and a lively layout.

Let's Look at Animals Underground

A gimmicky book that actually works very, very well. Illustrations and text on white pages explain the animals that live underground. See-through pages backed by black allow for a child to use a special "torch" to see the underground world. 

The Soil We Live On

This is a book from the 1960s, and its geography is North American, but it has clear explanations and some very fun experiments.

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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June's Many Winters in Australia Mean Love Trains

June is wintertime in Australia, with days shorter and cooler than they are in January. Australia is so immense that its winters are varied  -- in some parts of the country, winter is dry; in other parts it is rainy -- and have different names in different regions. Some of Australia's names for this season are:

• Mawkur
• Alhwerrpa 
• Nguag 
• Gagulong 
• Rramardu 
• Tunna 
• Tugarah Tuli 
• Yurrluurrp 
• Yutang 
• Dharratharramirri 

  
  

These words are so mellifluous! I especially like Dharratharramirri, which means "the season of the cool winds";  the very word sounds like soft breezes, onomatopoetic zephyrs soft on the tongue.

In spite of the variation across the continent,  one thing that is the same everywhere at this time of the year is the behaviour of the echidna, also called the spiny anteater ( Tachyglossidae ). This fascinating animal is to be found all over Australia, wherever there are plenty of ants. They spend their lives alone, eating ants and keeping out of view, except in winter. Now is their mating season, when they tend to gather together, males following a female in a line that people call a "love train".

An excellent page of information for young people about this animal can be found on Scribbly Gum.

As ever, Wikipedia has an article on it as well.

Watch the echidna on this YouTube video

Model an Echidna

You will need:

modeling clay

toothpicks

a print of the picture above to serve as a guide

Ask the children to mold the clay into the body, sculpting a head and snout. Then ask them to put the toothpicks into the body as spines, being careful to have them all slant in the same direction, as in the picture.

 ©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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Frogs!

Frogs are on most continents of the world. They are important, they are endangered, and with the release of the Prince of Wales's new film about saving the rainforests -- with a frog as a mascot -- they are topical. 

By now, all over the northern hemisphere, where it is late spring, newly adult frogs are croaking the nights away. In the southern hemisphere, where it is autumn,  frogs are breeding, anticipating the rains which will provide swamps and puddles in which the emerging tadpoles will thrive. Next month, the amazing Purple Frog of India (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis) which spends almost all year underground, will come out to mate during the monsoons.

Surely, one of the most fascinating metamorphoses in nature is that of the development of tadpoles into frogs. It is like watching the evolution of the species played out with each individual. Teaching it to children is much more fun than many other subjects, because it is so amazing, like science fiction, and because frogs can be so funny. They look like certain people. (Think of Toad in   The Wind In The Willows ! )

The three stages of the frog's development are: tadpole, (when they are vegetarians) froglet, adult frog (when they are carnivores).  Below are just a few of the many sites explaining the lives of frogs, with many pictures.

Frog Metamorphosis Dance

Combining the need for play with learning about frogs, we include here the age-old game of leap-frog. Astoundingly, many children today do not know how to play this game. Please read here if you need instructions:  How To Play Leap-frog .

This dance needs to be done outdoors. 

1) Ask the children to stand in lines at arms' distance. 

2) The tadpole stage - with arms held tightly against the sides, weave the upper body, making sucking noises (tadpoles at first hold on to something by sucking. Then, they eat algae.

3) The froglet stage - begin to move the arms, stop sucking, crouch down.

4) The adult frog stage - still crouched, line up, with a good distance between each child.

5) Play leap-frog!

Develop Imaginative Writing Skills

Without question, one of the greatest of all imaginative picture books is David Wiesner's  Tuesday   .

It is a wordless book. As a story writing lesson, ask the children to write their interpretation of  the pictures.

Frog-related websites:

The Prince's Rainforests Project

American Museum of Natural History on Frogs

Frogmatters - about the threatened extinction of all frogs

Australian Frogs

Save the Frogs, which also has a very good educational poster about frogs.

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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Animals With Mask Markings

Following on from the previous post about birds with bandit masks, we thought we might look at animals with mask markings, such as the three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegata) from Central and South America, the black and white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata) from Madagascar, and the North American raccoon (Procyon lotor) . 

       

Depending on where you are, you may have seen one of these animals in your garden or on a trip to the forest. At least, you and the children may have seen them at the local zoo. 

Masks on animals may have inspired the first primitive masks. If, in animals, they serve to frighten off predators, when humans donned them long ago, they were meant to give a certain power to the wearer. Now, but for occasional moments in theatre, they are just for fun.

                                    

Make masks

Really, there are so many good downloads for children's mask activities that we will not add another. Here are a few that we liked:

http://holidays.kaboose.com/craft-animalmask.html

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/animal_masks_to_print.htm

http://www.bristolzoo.org.uk/learning/masks

http://www.countrysidefoundation.org.uk/resources/activities/activitiesindex.htm

http://www.theholidayspot.com/halloween/freemasks/index.htm

http://pbskids.org/africa/mask/index.html

Extend this subject

• Combine this mask activity with the bird masks and have one big mask day.

• In both cases, find on a map the continents (and island!) where these animals and birds are native. When the children have made and are wearing their masks, group them according to continent . Remind them of what the season is at the moment on that continent and have them demonstrate what they would be doing in that weather.

  
And have fun! 

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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Masked Birds

Learning about animal characteristics can help children to learn to observe. As you progress with the outdoor  observation activities, it will be possible to teach children to see more, and to begin to make comparisons. Here we present one example.

Many animals and birds have colouring that looks to us like eye masks. The Blue Dacnis (Dacnis cayana) in South America, the Masked Laughingthrush (Garrulax perspicillatus) in Asia, and some of the nuthatches ( Sitta europaea and Sitta canadensis) in Europe and North America all are examples of birds with a black band across their eyes:

   

    

Biologists do not really know why that type of colouring evolved. The strongest theory is that it makes the eyes (and thus the bird) seem larger and that predators will be scared off. That makes sense for masks that look like huge circles around the eyes, but we are not so sure about the type of mask that looks like a bandit's. Such a marking does not make the eyes seem bigger; it makes them seem to disappear. Perhaps that scares predators too. 

In a class discussion, we asked children (aged 6-7) why they thought birds would have such a mask across their faces. Here are some of the responses:

• Maybe it is some kind of a crook
• So the bugs could not see it eat them 
• It looks cool 

I rather like the idea of charitable colouring preventing insects from knowing what ate them. Even more, I like the idea that the colouring is just "cool" and that birds, at least potential mates, think so too, as if these were a group of Zorro species. 

Make bird masks

All you need is a roll of black crepe paper. Cut a strip for each child. Let them cut eye holes, and tie the strip around their heads. Ask them to choose which of the four masked birds above they want to be, and to draw a picture of it. 

To help them decide, if you have classroom computers and the internet, go to the Internet Bird Collection  http://ibc.lynxeds.com/

and look at some videos of them. Remember to type the Latin name into the search box to get straight to the correct bird.

Discussion

Ask them why they think these birds have such a masking. Get them discussing and exchanging ideas. Do send in their ideas, please! 

Extend the observation

The next time you go outdoors, ask the children to look for other similarities in colouring in nature .

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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Autumn Leaves

It is autumn in the southern hemisphere. In the south of Chile and Argentina, the southern beech (Nothofagus) trees' leaves are turning colour and in New Zealand, the poplar leaves have all gone yellow. Creatures and plants are preparing for a cold and windy season to come.

There are numerous explanations of the seasons using the life cycle of a tree. We thought we would use a leaf this time....with a mouse. The following craft not only explains the changes a leaf goes through, but how it is a part of the larger world. The resulting drawing allows the child who made it to use it as a small storytelling prop.

The Leaf and Mouse Storytelling Prop

Download Half a leaf 

Download this sketch or make your own of the same shape.

Make enough copies for each child to have one.

Ask the children to:

Fold the paper along the base of the shape and cut out the shape.

Keeping it folded, draw a simple mouse:nose, whiskers, eye, ear.

Colour the mouse grey.

Turn the mouse over and on this side, draw the veins of a leaf.

Colour this half of a leaf brown.

Open the shape and draw the veins of a leaf on both sides.

Colour one side green and one side yellow.

To Tell the Story of a Leaf

Each child now can:

Hold up the green side and explain that when leaves bud and unfold, they are green.

Turn the shape and hold up the yellow side and say that leaves turn yellow in the autumn when the weather turns colder.

Open the shape and refold it to show the brown side and tell how the leaves die, turn brown and fall to the ground.

Turn the shape and show the mouse who needs a home.

Open the shape and show the mouse and the brown leaf together and tell how a mouse will use dead leaves to make a nest.

Fold the mouse and brown side together and say that now the mouse is warm in her nest of leaves.

THE END

Now the children can take home their project and explain the changes in leaves to their families.

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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The Season of the Long Rains

Until now, I have written about seasons in the southern and northern hemispheres that are clearly opposed, and have said nothing about that vast part of our planet that is equatorial. It is a region where the seasons are not marked by changes from hot to cold but from wet to dry.

Mary Muhenda writes from Uganda about the season of the Long Rains, which is just beginning: 

"Uganda has four seasons: the Long Rains, the Long Dry Season, the Short Rains, and the Short Dry Season." The Long Rains begin in February or March and last until May. The name is not because the season is long (it is actually shorter than the Short Rains) but because each afternoon when it rains, it rains for a long, long time.

There are few sights as beautiful as the coming of the Long Rains -- Masika in Swahili -- in Africa. One stands in the dry, sunny heat and can gaze far away across the flat grasslands, where vast, dark clouds are gathered, heavy and low. The lightning flashes and the rain pours down in wide bands, all at a distance. Close by, the sky is blue, the land is parched, its breathlessness turning from despair to anticipation as, over the next few days, the dark cloud that never seems to empty draws closer. The air becomes moist. One or two plump, lone drops fall from the sky. Every plant and creature strains toward the moisture like Tantalus. Finally, the huge cloud is above and the rain shoots down out of it to an earth so dry that the dust bounces under the beating drops for the first days of the rains. There is a surge of joy in all of nature striving upward to meet the falling surge of warm rain. Flowers bloom, trees seem to fatten, birds sing again, people dance.

All becomes mud. After the initial joyous gratitude, people set to work planting their crops of "sorghum, maize, peas and beans," Mary writes. Now "the countryside is very green and lovely". All plants grow quickly, not just the crops, and weeding is a daily requirement. While farmers and families are tramping through the mud to plant and weed, animals are celebrating.

Away from the cities, the animals have their own way with the mud that is now everywhere in a variety of colours, but especially brick red. Elephants (Loxondonta) take mud baths. Black rhinos (Diceros bicornis) indulge themselves by wallowing in the mud for hours at sunset.

                 

Not in the beginning of the season, when the dust is still dancing under the thundering raindrops, but when the earth is truly wetted, the African bullfrogs (Pyxicephalus adspersus) emerge from the holes in which they have waited out the dry season and begin their loud and sombre chorus.

The Long Rains will last for months. Every afternoon and into the evening, it will rain heavily for hours. People will stop celebrating the rains and grow tired of them so that, when everything begins to dry out in May, they will celebrate the coming of the new season: the Short Dry Season.

How To Celebrate the Long Rains

Get Muddy! Wallow in the Mud Like a Black Rhino!!

Tell the parents the day before that the children need to come in old clothes. At the end of the day, fill some plastic tubs with mud and let the children plunge their arms in it up to their elbows, smearing streaks on their faces, making mud pies, enjoying the naughty squelching sounds and the obscene thrill of sensuality. No?

The current issue of Exchange has an article by Joan Almon entitled "The Fear of Play" which discusses just why no one would follow the above instructions, though there is absolutely nothing wrong with them. You can purchase the article here:

https://secure.ccie.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=5018642 

Michael Rosen, the Children's Laureate  has spoken out often, if not in praise of mud, at least very eloquently making the case for children's play. In preparing this post, I was stunned to find that one magazine considered it necessary to give a recipe for making mud. How can that be? How can anyone be so cut off from the natural world as to need a recipe for making mud? Here it is, with no secret ingredients:

http://www.craftzine-digital.com/craft/vol03/?pg=143

Get a Little Muddy, Like a Little Black Rhino!

Make copies of the rhino mask template below on card and give one to each child to cut out. Give each child a small cup of mud to smear on the mask. When it is dry, put string or an elastic band through the holes in the tabs and the child can wear a muddy rhino mask.

Download Rhino mask 4 

Pretend to Get Muddy!

Create the masks as above and give each child a grey crayon to colour it.

Have an African Bullfrog Chorus!

Scroll or play through the frogs in the game on this page to get to the African Bullfrog and play his call for the class:

http://research.calacademy.org/research/library/biodiv/kids_page/frogs/frogs2.html

Divide the children into two groups and have them try to outdo one another imitating the bullfrog's calls. Have them sing their bullfrog call in a round.

Additionally, play "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog" by the Creedence Clearwater Revival 

here, on YouTube:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtYnCmw2CWE

Teach the children the chorus:

Joy to the world, all the boys and girls

All the fishes in the deep blue seas

Joy to you and me

Now, add in the chorus of  the bullfrog call. Still singing, go out and weed the garden you planted recently and think of people in East Africa doing the same in the rain.

Discuss rains

In the post "March Is Autumn; March Is Spring", the rains of Brazil and Britain in March were discussed. Now, the Long Rains of East Africa are an addition to March's rainy reputation.

Measure and Compare Rainfall

For children aged 8 and up, here is a great lesson and activity for measuring rainfall from NASA:

http://scool.larc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/view_lessonplan.cgi?id=12

Enjoy the rain!

©2009 Anne Morddel

Seasons South and North

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