After Christmas Tree Investigation

On Friday the Kinders asked a great question! They said: “Ms. K, how will we know when animals have come to visit our After Christmas Tree?” Together we pondered the question and came up with three clues to identify how we might know we had some visitors. It did not take much prompting for the students to suggest we would see: 1) animal tracks in the snow, 2) less seeds on our bird feeders and 3) animal droppings. We drew on previous knowledge and discussed the process of when animals eat, they will always poop after. Just like humans! After the discussion, we headed outside to check for clues. To our amazement, we found evidence of many different visitors. The first clue we investigated was the droppings we found in the snow. Not too far from the droppings were animals tracks. Together we concluded that the droppings and tracks belonged to a rabbit. Next we were faced with another clue to figure out. Some of our bird feeders were on the ground! The Kinders excitedly picked them up and investigated. We found that there was substantially less seeds on the surface and in some cases there were bites taken right out of the pinecone! We brainstormed that the animals responsible for this clue could be squirrels or birds. Here are some pictures from the investigation:

A.M

P.M

- Ms. K (Alyssia)