It’s squirrel season.
You hear them chattering up a storm; see them scampering along branches as they collect nuts… And at our house, on the weekends, see them up close and personal when OneDaddy goes hunting in the morning.

It just makes sense that my animal-loving kids are nuts about squirrels right now.
So when I stumbled upon Hello, Squirrels! at the library, I couldn’t resist bringing it home so we could learn all about what squirrels do each season.
The kids loved seeing the beautiful drawings of pink baby squirrels and watching them grow up as we turned the pages and the seasons changed from spring all the way to winter.
After reading the book several times (a must around here with any new book), we were ready to pretend to be squirrels.
First we built a nest with the leaves that have fallen so far. The book shows how the nests are made with sticks and leaves in the crooks of tree branches. Monkey tried to recreate that on a big rock…
But eventually he decided the pile on the ground was a little cozier. So, he joined his sister in the nest …and they both stretched out to see how it felt.
After a little break from all their hard work (wait a minute… that was ME raking most of those leaves…), the “squirrels” went to find the nuts they had buried earlier…
The night before our squirrel fun, I had each of them bury an acorn in an egg carton. The goal was to see if they could remember which space they had buried their nut, just like real squirrels have to find their buried acorns in the winter. My almost 5 year-old found hers right away. It took the 3 year-old a couple tries to remember which hole he had hidden his acorn in. Once they found their acorns, they had fun burying them and digging them up over and over…. (A cookie sheet under the egg carton kept the mess to a minimum.)
We also talked about what happens to all those acorns the squirrels don’t find during the winter. I’m thinking we are going to have to plant a few acorns of our own to see if they will pop up as seedlings next spring!
And to end our squirrel festivities we colored a few simple squirrel pictures I had printed off the Internet. By that time my little squirrels were ready to be free, just like the baby squirrels in the book who eventually left the nest to do their own thing.
thesmellofpencils says
Thanks for stopping by my blog! We are loving our homeschooling adventures! Stop by again for more ideas and I’m about to peruse your blog! =)
OneMommy says
Thank YOU for hosting!
Courtney says
Such little cuties you have! I love this time of year. It is so fun to have the kids outdoors.
Visiting from blog frog 🙂
OneMommy says
It IS a great time to get them outdoors! Crunchy leaves, lots of colors…
Thanks for stopping by; off to your site!
Kate says
I love the buried acorn idea!
OneMommy says
Thanks, they did, too, evidently since they did it over and over…
Alicia Washington says
I absolutely love how creative you are and how you take advantage of your surrounding and nature to learn incredible lessons about the animals and their habits. I really appreciate this post especially because it gave me some ideas that I can share with my children. I think they would enjoy this and have a lot of fun in the process. I think that I would too!
OneMommy says
Oh, it was definitely fun for all of us! (Even my husband was out watching them play in their “nest.”)
JDaniel4's Mom says
What fun! Your nest and nut hunting activities are really fun. Thank you for linking to Read.Explore.Learn. I will be sharing this post tomorrow morning on the Read.Explore.Learn Facebook page.
OneMommy says
Thank you for hosting again this week!
And thank you for sharing it on the FB page! I’m going to admit that I have trouble finding people’s FB pages w/o links. I’d love to stop over and “like” the page — can you leave me a link?
Jolanthe says
I love the ‘burying’ of the nuts to find later. That is such a fabulous idea!!
Thanks for joining up with us this week and sharing!
OneMommy says
They loved that part! (Probably b/c I let them play in dirt…)
Donna DM Yates says
So cute. You are really creative.
Crystal says
Oh my this is so fun! My boys will love this. Thank you for linking it up to The Mommy Club this week. I’m going to be featuring you today on my Facebook page.
If you have a chance, please check out the scoop on my Twitter party for next week. I’d LOVE for you to join the fun. http://www.crystalandcomp.com/2012/10/twitter-party-ellas-kitchen-is-helping-you-createsmiles-with-organic-baby-and-kid-food/
Crystal & Co
OneMommy says
Being a squirrel was so much fun — hope your boys enjoy! Thanks so much for featuring me on your FB page! Off to check out your Twitter party details!