I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter Weekend.  We sure did.  We were blessed with tickets to see "Love According to John", I have to say for anyone who has not had a privilege of seeing this play yet mark your calendars for next Eater to buy tickets.  It was so well done, the music was delightful, and overall was a beautiful production.  I took my 2 oldest children and the baby(6 months old), even the baby was thrilled with it staring at the actors and jumping up and down "singing" with the songs.   The weekend progressed with the usual egg hunts, dying eggs, big dinner and eating lots of chocolate, my goodness is my belly still full.

Of course last week ushered in the arrival of spring.  Now I don't know about your part of Alberta but my yard still has entirely too much snow in it for my liking and knowing Alberta we are bound to have another blast of winter before the May long weekend arrives.  We are making our plans for spring activities, particularly related to Science.  Life cycles is always a fun unit to study when spring arrives, this years plan includes raising caterpillars/butterflies and tadpoles/frogs.  I would love to do chicken eggs again like we have in the past, but the hatchery we previously used no longer rents them out.  If you are aware of a location to get eggs and rent an incubator in the Edmonton area(or any area) let me know and I will post it here on the blog. 

For those interested in raising Painted Lady Butterflies this year, "Butterfly,Wings and Wishes" is the company to contact.  They sell kits that include the larvae, food and information to help you raise the butterflies. If your interest is in tadpoles/frogs I have not found a company yet that sells the tadpoles here in Alberta, what I have is a friend with a pond on her property to get tadpoles from then return the frogs to once grown.

Spring is also the time to start thinking about gardens and plants.  Even though it is too early to start the actual planting, now is the time to plan what we want to grow, research the best growing conditions for those plants and prepare the land.  Soon the Botanical gardens throughout the province will be open allowing us to enjoy the plant life around our areas.  Sadly the Muttart in Edmonton has closed for renovations for the next 10 months so enjoying that will not be possible again until next year. 

If you are interested in nature activities geared for Alberta, the series of books "Knee High Nature _____ in Alberta" by Dianne Hayley and Pat Wishart are wonderful.  It is a 4 book series 1 for each season and outlines a wonderful selection of nature activities, finger plays and songs and information based on our particular Albertan climate.  The Spring book covers pond life; Frogs,Toads & Salamanders; Ladybugs; Butterflies & Moths; Green and Growing(plants); hares & rabbits; and Spring Birds.

Some Suggestions for Spring Walks (Taken from Knee High Nature Spring in Alberta)

• Mini Walk- Look for things smaller than a penny
• Green Walk - Look for the first signs of green; if you give your child a green jelly bean first, the "magic" helps them see green much better
• Smelling Walk - sniff various objects you find, such as mud, bark, moss, mushrooms, leaves, buds and flowers
• Listening Walk - Keep track of all the different sounds you hear; try to imitate them
• Bird Walk - focus on looking for birds and birds nests and listening for birds songs
• What's New way - keep a note of returning birds, flowering plants, awakening animals
• Clean-Up Walk - the melting snow exposes the garbage that the winds of winter have blown around - take time to clean up
• I Wonder Walk - for example "I wonder how the butterfly survived the winter?"
• Mini-Stop - use a hoop t circle a small area, look for tiny things that might be hiding under the lead litter

Enjoy the beautiful sunshine, and have a great time this first week of Spring.  Leave me a message here if you take one of those spring walks and let me know how it went.