December 2022 Kids’ Corner
from the Gale River Cooperative Preschool
Return to Light
December is the darkest time of the year for the northern hemisphere. The winter solstice, on the 21st, has the longest night and shortest day of the year. Interestingly, because the earth rotates around the sun at an angle, December 21st is the longest day and shortest night of the year for the southern hemisphere!
Traditionally, many communities have celebrated the solstice as it marks when the light begins to return. Many rituals revolve around light, and there are structures around the world built to align with the sun’s position on the solstice.
Newgrange is a dome-shaped, 249-foot-wide monument constructed around 3200 B.C. in Ireland. It was designed so that every winter solstice, the rising sun shines through a “roof box” near the entrance and floods the main passageway and the inner chamber with light. It is a passage tomb along a 62-foot-long corridor with cremated bones. More famously, Stonehenge in England is oriented towards the solstice sunset, though how it was built is a mystery.
Many people also participate in the Waldorf-inspired tradition of a spiral walk. A spiral walk represents the cyclical nature of the year and looking inward to find your own light, then bringing it back out to the world. Usually, a spiral is built out of natural materials with some sort of light at the center. People walk inwards towards the center of the spiral and reflect on the year and themselves. When they reach the center, they take a piece of the light somehow and return back out of the spiral.
You could bring a candle in and light it from the central flame or have a jar lantern that you place a tealight into. However you choose to celebrate or acknowledge the solstice, take some time to both reflect back and look forward as we welcome the return of the light.
Want tips on how to celebrate the solstice? Check out some fun ideas below!
Creating your own spiral walk is pretty simple! You can collect some natural materials like fir boughs or just use scarves or another long material to create the spiral. Set some form of light in the middle and have everyone enter the spiral, collect some light, and return out. This is a great activity with a small group and can be done inside or outside.
Head out for an evening walk/hike on the solstice. Most of us view the 4 pm darkness as a hindrance but actually, it gives us an opportunity to experience the natural world at night without staying up too late! Head out for a walk with a headlamp and see what you can see, hear, and sense. Has anything changed about your familiar natural place?
Create a colorful lantern. This is a great thing to create for the spiral walk or just for holding candles. Save a glass jar and clean it, so you remove the label. Decorate the jar by gluing tissue paper onto it or other thin materials so the light will shine through. Wrap wire around the lip of the jar tightly, then create a handle out of wire so you can hold your jar. Place a candle or tealight inside and enjoy the color!
Bake a delicious Yule log cake! The Yule log is a European/Scandinavian tradition of burning an entire tree over the course of the twelve days of Christmas. It’s pretty difficult to replicate that nowadays, so a fun way to celebrate is to create a cake in the shape of a Yule log! You can find many recipes online or use this one. Enjoy! https://meaningfulmama.com/buche-de-noel-yule-log-recipe-real-simple.html
December 2021 Kids Corner
from the Gale River Cooperative Preschool
Squirrel tracks in the snow.
Tracking Animals in the Winter!
In December, snow starts to fly and the world disappears into a wintery white. As we hunker down with hot cocoa, animals are also changing their routines. Squirrels, chipmunks and some birds have been hiding seeds, nuts, and fruits to store for winter meals. Other animals migrate south to a warmer climate where food is more abundant. We commonly think of birds migrating south such as the geese and warblers, but butterflies and even whales will migrate in search of a better environment to ride out the winter. Notoriously, bears begin hibernation where they enter a state of decreased activity. Their heart rate slows, their body temperature drops, and they even stop peeing, instead living off of the fat and nutrients they’ve stored by eating all fall. As their habits change, signs of animal activity also change. Deer will bed down in large groups leaving depressions in the snow and trails where they’ve walked to get water. Tracks, previously lost in the leaves and dirt of the forest floor, suddenly emerge on the fresh snow. The remaining birds will move in mixed species flocks appearing at newly filled bird feeders. This is the perfect time to go explore your local natural area to look for changes or signs of animals. Read below for some ideas on what to do when you are out and about!
Winter Animal Exploration
A fun activity to do without leaving home is participating in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Project FeederWatch Program. If you have a bird feeder at home, you can count the number of individuals per bird species at the feeder at one time during bi-weekly observation sessions. You can submit this citizen science data online and it helps them research bird distribution and abundance. They also have lots of winter bird resources here: https://feederwatch.org/
Track ID is fun and easy to do! There are lots of ID cards available online including a pocket guide from NH Fish & Game. Simply print your card and go for a walk after a fresh snow. Tracks can be divided into 4 categories: perfect walkers, imperfect walkers, hoppers/leapers, and bounders. Lots of the tracks you’ll see include squirrels, deer, mice, and birds.
Winter Animal Activities and Crafts
We leave tracks in the snow too, so a fun thing to try is tracking a family member or a friend! It’s like hide and seek but easier because they’ve left a trail to follow. Have someone go hide somewhere in the woods after fresh snow has fallen. Once they have had enough time to hide, follow the trail! This will get trickier and trickier as more trails are created.
It may be hard to find the snowshoe hare at first glance, but it is there!
Some animals, like snowshoe hare and the arctic fox, will change the color of their fur to camouflage better with the snow. Draw your color changing animal in brown on white paper, then again in a grey or white color. Take a cotton ball and dip it in white paint. Create a blanket of snow with the cotton ball. Which animal can you see better? Which one do you think would survive better?
Animals need shelter, just like us, and especially in the winter. Bears hibernate in dens or caves. Squirrels build nests in trees. Can you build a shelter outside too? Find a tree or large log that is leaning and lean smaller sticks and logs on either side so you make an A-frame shelter. You can cover the walls in bark and put a bed of fir boughs on the floor for a soft spot.
Thanks to our partner, the Gale River Cooperative Preschool in Bethlehem, for helping our area parents get kiddos outside for fun no matter the time of year.
