First Green in the Woods!

IMG_8171

“I want to find a chickadee in my Sit Spot.” Ian’s picture is really detailed and he put spaces and a period at the end of his sentence.

IMG_8172

“I hope to find a turkey up in the air.” Henry has  a clear picture and is working on hearing all the sounds in his words.

IMG_8173

“I am going to see some birds on the ground.” Avery used lowercase letters, spaces between her words, and her words match her picture. She also used great color to show the kinds of birds: A robin, a bluebird, a crow, and a chickadee.

IMG_8180

On the playground, we saw two eagles up in the sky.  Isaiah and Mr. Frank saw them first. They flew in a circle around us and they came back. We looked through our binoculars to see them.

IMG_8181

Olivia and Charlotte found green plants in their Sit Spots. Actually, they were everywhere in the woods. Trees were starting to put out leaves too!

IMG_8194

Ainsley was looking through her binoculars in her Sit Spot, looking for a bird. She saw two.

IMG_8204

Avery was climbing up her tree so she could sit in the branch. Dakota got his leg stuck in the Y of that tree today too.

IMG_8213

Gregory and Willow were making a home for squirrels and a garden for them. They were planting buds that would grow for the squirrels.

IMG_8214

Dakota found a worm when he was trying to pull a tree out of the ground.

IMG_8224

Here is Gregory climbing  a big tree. Avery and Olivia climbed it too. It was a new tree for us and it was really tricky. Stuff kept getting in Avery’s hair and the green stuff got in her eyes. Gregory went up really high! And he had to get down because that was too high.

IMG_8228

Here is Brayden, our First Grade Helper, climbing. He played a lot of tag with Henry.

IMG_8234

Willow was using this stick to measure how high the water was.

 

Thank You Trust for Our Future!

Earlier this year, the Trust for Our Future helped us buy rain coats, a tarp, and base layers to support our outdoor learning. Mrs. Booth, from the Trust, came out on Monday to see us in action outside. We each wrote a Thank You card and here is the letter we wrote as a class. Thank you, TFOF! Our Forest Days would not be possible without this gear!

IMG_8169.JPG

Pushes and Pulls

After our Forest Day today, we talked about all the learning we have been doing about pushes and pulls in science. We recently designed some play areas that have pushes and pulls (check them out hung up outside our classroom). We notice that we use pushes and pulls all the time when we move sticks, climb, and jump on ice to break it, for example. But what kinds of things could we add to our woods that would let us do more pushes and pulls?

We brainstormed (slides, treehouses with ladders, swings, rollercoasters) and then cut our list down to a few options that we could actually make.

  1. Rope swing
  2. Wooden bench swing
  3. Rope ladder

The grant that gave us the Grundens raincoats also gave us money for ropes for swings. We’re hoping to get those up soon!

IMG_8067

Sit Spots: Can you spot the students?

IMG_8071

A new climbing tree! The pricker bushes didn’t stop anyone.

 

IMG_8072

Isla and Ainsley found “writing” on this stick. Ainsley said, “It looks like someone wrote on this long, long ago.”

IMG_8073

There was “writing” on a lot of sticks. Very mysterious!

IMG_8075

Playing on the car in Henry’s Sit Spot.

April is An Important Month

Our naturalist book by Mary Holland told us today that “April is the month of the most transformation.” We read all about the changes in the plants and animals that we will see this month. Then, out in the woods, we saw that it was true: Water running everywhere, birds and squirrels active. It was a joyful Forest Monday! IMG_8063IMG_8056img_8059.jpgIMG_8041IMG_8036