To Trap or Not to Trap...

         A group of the children took some sticks and made a simple trap. "Look Leslie we made a trap and we're going to catch something." I smiled and suggested they find some type of food to put underneath it to lure them in.

         The next day the food was gone, but the trap was empty. The children were a little frustrated they got "skunked."

This is how it all began...... 

 

 

          The group of children decided they needed to make a bigger and better trap, and told me "they didn't need any help because this was a job for the boys."

 

 

They began to dig a hole under the tree house. They worked on the hole for about two days to get it nice and deep so the animal couldn't escape.  

 



 

The next step was to add walls for a foundation.

 

 

 

Last but not least they needed branches to act as camouflage.  

 

The group of boys were quite proud of their trap and were very confident their design would be successful, there was just one problem; the girls.

 

When the girls found out what the boys were trying to do they got quite upset.

"LESLIE! YOU CANNOT ALLOW THEM TO TRAP BUNNIES! THIS IS HORRIBLE! HOW COULD YOU!?" 

 

There were words. There was screaming. There were a little bit of tears. All I said to them was the boys had every right to build their trap.

 

 

The next day one of the girls brought in a bag of carrots for the bunnies. The boys said, "perfect you can give us some and we can put them in our trap!" (We all knew that wasn't about to happen)

 

Instead of arguing with the boys the girls brought in carrots and decided to build their "Bunny Shelter". The carrots in their shelter would deter the bunnies away from the boys trap, and into the house. (smart!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The girls worked together and built quite the shelter for the bunnies. When we went inside for snack the boys were trying to trade and negotiate to get some carrots.

 

 

The girls were on to them so they had no luck. The next day there were a lot of carrots in everybody's lunch boxes. When we all went outside there was a bunny in between the house and the trap. Of course the kids were so excited they bolted towards it and it ran off into our woods. At that moment everyone was so excited to actually see a bunny that they didn't even care about trapping it. We talked about how bunnies scare very easily and agreed we wouldn't try to chase them, rather, welcome them to our yard.

 

When we went inside I had an invitation set up for the children.

 

 

 

They all picked numbers and were put into a random group. They had to discuss amongst their group if they wanted to build a house or a trap. It was nice to see a healthy debate on what they should build. We ended up having some houses and some traps....

 

 

-Leslie Dionne