“Its’s gray!” “It lives in trees!” “It eats acorns!”
These weren’t hints for a riddle, just enthusiastic responses from the Hornet classroomin Week One’s Nature-Based Curriculum lesson at the Stein. As children identified the gray squirrel’s physical characteristics and learned its nesting habits, diet, and behavior, the 3-year-olds eagerly shared their experiences with squirrels.
St. Ann Center’s Nature-Based Curriculum was created by Katherine Keller, who launched it at the Bucyrus in 2022. As more Stein parents requested it, an adapted version began at the Stein, focusing on the animals, flowers, trees and plants found on and around campus, including Seminary Woods, backyards and parks. The lessons complement the center’s other classroom lessons.
Stein instructor Sheila Julson Thompson helps children connect to nature through classroom lessons, hands-on exploration, and corresponding art projects or games.
Using the resistance technique, children created colorful art featuring a squirrel.
Ms. Sheila meets weekly with the children to teach a new unit. The squirrel lesson included an educational picture book about the mammal, and wrapped up with a resist art project. Children daubing paint over paper with a temporarily affixed silhouette of a squirrel. When the children were finished painting, the template was removed to reveal a surprise – a squirrel!
Future lessons will cover local and migrating birds of southeast Wisconsin; animals such as raccoon and opossum that share our urban neighborhoods; native flowers and plants; edible crops; and more. The program aims not just to teach children to understand and respect the environment, but to develop a lasting appreciation for it, in accordance with the organization’s Franciscan values.