Springtime & Bears - children's program

For April's virtual Children's Program, we were inspired by a recent visitor near the Temple garden: a juvenile black bear! We explored how so many different creatures are waking up now, and shared some of our observations of nature, including warmer weather and (almost) no snow, longer days, the first flowers coming up, the return of many birds, wasps making nests, and of course, mud! Our more southern friends also have been seeing leaves sprouting on trees and even blueberries on their blueberry bush!

We then read and acted out the book Eat Like a Bear, written by April Pulley Sayre and illustrated by Steve Jenkins. In the story a bear wakes up hungry in April looking for food, and then progresses throughout the season finding various foods to eat, including horsetails, a bison hide, dandelions, ants, trout and berries, before snuggling back into its den for the winter once again.

After the story we practiced an eating meditation, using all of our senses to experience and appreciate a delicious snack. We then became bears snuggling in our dens before being woken up by the sound of the Temple bell. We ended with a group OM, sounding a little like the buzzing bees of spring.