This article is part of Madison Audubon’s Spring/Summer 2022 Newsletter. Read the full newsletter here!
Swapping nature stories with kids is one of my favorite parts of each education program lesson. It’s a fun, loose, easy part of class that can be silly or serious. But the real reason I love it so much is because it gives me a little window into each kid’s relationship with nature. I can learn about what they’re noticing, what’s important enough to them to remember, and what they think is interesting enough to tell me. We learn how they feel about a sighting based on how they tell it: was the snake they saw scary or cool? Did they feel bad for the mouse, or happy that the hawk got to eat? Maybe both.
This week the Lincoln fourth graders had a LOT of stories to share. Their stories recalled specific bits of information from lessons, or demonstrated how their observational skills have grown. They’re making connections and beginning to think like scientists! Here are just a few snippets from the kids’ wonderful stories:
“I heard a bird saying ‘hula hoop!’” (The mnemonic we teach for Mourning Doves is “hula, hoop... hoop... hoop.”)
“I saw a bunch of crows circling a tree and they were mobbing an owl. The owl looked like it had food in its feet.”
“I was in Utah over spring break and I was on a hike and saw three lizards!” The week before spring break we had learned about the amazing Dr. Earyn McGee and her #FindThatLizard posts on Instagram.
Several kids told stories about Wild Turkeys moving around their neighborhoods. Most included details about whether the turkeys were male or female, where they were, and what they were doing. Some connected the huge number of turkey sightings with spring and the mating season—and then another kid mentioned that these were “phenology” sightings.
We usually only spend about 10 minutes on nature stories before digging into our real lesson. When we reached the end of story time, a quick count revealed that 15 kids still had stories to tell. So much nature love to share!
We know part of this growth in storytelling skill is simply because they’re six months older than they were at the start of the school year. But we sure have come a long way from September’s “I saw a bunny at my Grandma’s house.” Here’s to many more stories!
