Target groups:
Daycare centres (3–6 years) and preschools
Group size:
25 persons
Duration:
55 minutes
This guided tour reviews the Finnish seasons and related natural phenomena. On a summer lake, we will meet beavers and buzz like mosquitoes. In the autumn, when nature and animals are preparing for the winter, we will find out who hibernates, who migrates south and who grows a winter coat. In the spring, we will crawl through a snow tunnel. Finally, we will print animal tracks to take home for all participants.
On this tour, we will visit the Finnish Nature exhibition, occasionally sitting down to talk with the children about different seasons. We will recall scents, sounds and flavours associated with summer, as well as try dried bilberries. From the fringes of an autumn field, we will observe how the leaves of trees change colour and find out how birds are ringed for their migration.
In the winter landscape, we will compare animals in their summer and winter dress, imagining how it would feel to shrink for the winter like shrews do. We will feel the spikes of a hibernating hedgehog and the soft winter coat of a fox.
Finally, we will visit the museum workshop where we will print the tracks of the animals seen during the tour. For printing, we use life-size footprint stamps (bear, elk, hare), which we press on paper after dipping them in black colourant. Once the prints have dried, we will roll them up for the children to take home.