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Unusually warm days of early Spring and planned outings has us all feeling like summer vacation started a bit early. The only strange thing is to be in shorts at the beach when the trees don't have any leaves yet.
I accompanied Miranda on her class trip which included her first ride on a school bus to a great place with a farm, a natural playground and a funky, interactive art exhibit.


I do love field trips and always plan at least a couple for my students. This week I took them to a sewage treatment plant, which is always enlightening, and a protected salt marsh on Long Island Sound. The photo above is of my students checking out a rock covered with recently spawned barnacles.


A friend organized a family hike today to a local shoreline and it was a beautiful day and I feel very lucky to have so many good friends that value taking their children to natural areas. I would have to say that reading to my kids and exploring the outdoors with them are my two favorite parenting activities (aside from smooches and reveling in their hilarity, of course).






Lastly, whenever I am out in natural areas many days over of a short period time, a theme emerges. Week of the spittle bugs, week of Spring Peepers peeping, etc. The changing storyline of nature is part of what keeps me intrigued. So, this week's theme was praying mantis egg cases, featured as the brown blob on marsh grass above. I saw them with my students earlier this week and with my family today. They have been there since last fall, but I haven't been in a lot of grassy places since last fall, so they seem very new to me.