Our Ears Science today was a blast! I was not looking forward to teaching about the parts of the ear, but so far it has been pretty fun. We went to the Children's University website and went through an interactive ear tour. After that we went through it a second time but while molding the parts out of clay as we went to help us remember. I didn't get pictures of every part, such as the pinna (the formed the clay into bowl shapes to "catch" the sound like our ears do), but here are some: The focus wasn't on having accurate representations. It was about remembering the names of the different parts and the order they come in, and the clay certainly seems to have helped! Unfortunately could not find plastic eggs in time since it is more Christmas versus Easter right now, but oh well. I found some tiny dip containers at the dollar store, some army duct tape that the kids loved and we taped up some maracas. The kids loved them, although they weren't as pretty as the one from the blog Dana Made It.
0 Comments
I always thought nature should be integrated into the classroom, but up until a couple of years ago when I started working in an inner-city school, I began to really believe that it had to be a true priority in our schools. So many students live in cramped apartments far away from any green space. Those that do live near green space often can't play freely due to the frequency of certain types of garbage (used condom anyone?). I personally love living in the center of the city, but even I begin to crave fresh air and greenery after awhile! I have learned a lot so far trying to reconnect students with nature... and much of my learning has been from my mistakes. After attending the Outdoor Classroom Institute, I began to reflect on this journey and have pretty much summed it up here! Why Bother? I am sure many people wonder why I bother worrying about getting kids outside when they have other pressing issues. Since I work in an inner-city school, some of our students have some major issues due to poverty and other societal pressures and this causes them to have behavioral and learning challenges at school. I think no matter what schools we are at (urban, suburban, whatever), we all have students like this, and I adamantly believe that nature education is best for them. My school also has a specialized program emphasizing cultural education for First Nations and Metis students. Their families have come to the city for a variety of reasons but don't want to lose touch with their traditional ways. Unfortunately city living (especially inner-city living) isn't always conducive to some of the practices. Some of the benefits of students reconnecting with the outdoors include: - Higher test scores - Supposedly (in Britain) more children are currently being admitted into the hospital for falling out of bed versus falling out of trees which I just find insane - It increases their concern and appreciation for the environment - Increases to self-discipline and self-control - Improved motor abilities - Possibly prevents myopia - May prevent asthma - Prevents obesity - Improves cognitive functioning - Improves academic achievement - Reduces stress - Improves concentration - Improves Classroom behaviour - Potential to improve symptoms of depression Some FailuresSometimes things seem like great ideas. And theeeeennnnnn.... they blow up in your face. Being that one of my major flaws is disorganization, many of these would be my fault. Still... here we go! Weeds -So, I started a school garden thinking, "WOW, this will be so fantastic!". Left for a month... came back and 90% of the plants we had planted had been choked out by weeds. We had planted a wild raspberry bush, a wild blueberry bush, sunflowers, buffalo sage, peas, carrots, pumpkins, and sweetgrass. I came back to a few carrots, a pumpkin plant, a single (nearly dead) sage plant, a very close to dead blueberry bush, and thriving sweetgrass (YES, IT SURVIVED!!!). I also was presented with more weeds than I had ever seen in my life. After filling three garbage bags and a couple of buckets I hadn't even made a dent in the weeds. Not even a wee bit. Go figure. Lesson Learned - Set up a plan for taking care of the garden over the summer. Perhaps have teachers sign up for one week each over the Summer months, or have parent volunteers do it if possible. Landscape tarp can work well, or use naturalized plants that can survive in spite of weeds and without any watering. Being a Killjoy -I was so intent on getting the children outside and making sure they enjoyed it (DAMN IT, you WILL LOVE NATURE!) that I doubt most of them actually did enjoy it. I didn't take advantage of natural learning opportunities, but instead insisted that they needed to focus on specific things that in the big picture, probably didn't matter. Lesson Learned: Students need time to explore. Ever give out math manipulatives? Know how you have to give that free exploration for a few minutes? I think the same is required with Outdoor Classrooms. I am going to try a model I call "EAT". Students need to Explore when they first get outside, do an Activity that gets their energy out, and then they can concentrate on the specified Task. I Forgot About Me -Last year I ended up having a pretty difficult time. I went through some very stressful situations, and developed some health issues. As a result, I was way too frazzled and disorganized to follow through on everything I wanted to do. Field trips were never booked, things never sent in.... the list goes on! Lesson Learned: You can only help others if you aren't a crazy mess yourself ;-)! SuccessesSo yes, there were certainly some moments of pure and complete failure. I think everyone has had a lesson or two that has utterly bombed. Luckily, there were definitely some moments of success that will stick with me forever, and that has made it all worth it! Seeing My Students Through a Different Lens -The outdoor classroom can be scary because of the change in routine and the naturally unstructured feel of the environment. Add in a few students with behaviour or attention issues and it can feel like chaos, right? Sometimes, it definitely can. Fortunately, I saw some great and wonderful things in my students I hadn't seen before. My students and I had a change to go to Green School: This week-long field trip was amazing. My students went from barely being willing to sit on the ground, to sitting on the ground and journaling for 20-30 minutes! We had a parent who came with us and taught us so much about First Nations spirituality, plants, and tracking while we were out in the garden. One of my students who struggled with attention problems was so calm, attentive and focused the whole week that I felt like I was working with a completely different child. My students were given free range when journaling (they only had to write down the weather and date). One student with absolutely no encouragement or direction created this template throughout his whole journal: While I absolutely adored this child, he wasn't the strongest student. He didn't really like school, and it was a struggle for him to finish any assignments. Here he recorded multiple observations and created a scrapbook like format for the week! Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, But Examine, Observe and Admire it!Being outdoors, whether at the school, or on field trips, built a comfort and an interest in nature for my students (and for me!). We learned to just "be" and when that happened we saw so many more details than we had before! We were willing to explore off the beaten path when necessary, and get our hands (and feet!) dirty. It Didn't All Survive, but Some Did!My goal for our school garden was to create a Medicinal Garden based off of First Nations practices. I wanted to have a place where students could see what Sweetgrass, Sage, and Wild Tobacco looked like while still in the earth, especially those students who hadn't yet had a chance to go and pick medicines with the school or with their families. I also wanted to include some foods, and maybe some plants that were natural to Alberta. To see more about my hopes for the project, check out this website - Maskikiy Kistikan, which was a site I developed as a simplified sample of a resource that would be beneficial for teachers (essentially a website that if I had proper programming skills and gardening skills, plus more knowledge in First Nations spirituality and practices, I would create to pass on to teachers). So the Wild Tobacco didn't get planted, and most of the Sage died, but the Sweetgrass is thriving, and I have decided to be grateful for small steps. Maybe next year there will be two thriving plants!
I was so fortunate to have spent the last three days at the Outdoor Classroom Institute created and presented by the Evergreen charity. It was a free (thank you to Edmonton Community Foundation, the City of Edmonton Community Services, Edmonton Public Schools, Edmonton Catholic Schools, and the Council scolaire Centre-Nord for that!) which is always a bonus, but sometimes free conferences end up being a few days of self-promotion for whatever groups are putting it on. Not the case here, every session at this conference had something useful! Highlights of the ConferenceTouring Belgravia School GroundsBelgravia is a small, family oriented school near University of Alberta. In 1994 they started a school garden which has blossomed into one of the best Outdoor Learning Centers at a school in Edmonton, Alberta. Supported by parents, teachers, and of course the students themselves, the garden grows natural wildflowers, vegetables and many other plants. My dream would be to build a similar space at the school I currently work at. What an inspiring yet calming place to be for students and teachers alike! Outdoor Inquiry One of the major "Aha!" moments I had at this conference was how natural inquiry learning was when we were outside. The provocations were pre-provided by our Creator! We all know how shadows move throughout the day, but did you realize how quickly? Look at the photograph above.. the first chalk line was created at 2:00 pm, the second at 2:03 pm, and my photograph was taken at 2:04.... the shadow had already moved! Amazing! Even later on we were discussing "weeds" as a group and I learned that dandelions were invasive... about half the group thought it was common knowledge and the other half of us had our minds completely blown! One of the inquiry questions we had created after leanring that was, "What did Alberta's landscape look like 150-200 years ago?". What a great way to integrate social studies and science all at once! Journaling ActiviesI was introduced to Nature Journaling a couple of years ago when I attended Zoo School (a week long field trip to the Zoo) and later extended it at Green School (Same thing except to the Devonian Botanical Gardens outside our city). At the conference Antonella Bell provided us with more information regarding the practice and the benefits for our students. We also had time to practice a bit ourselves! Antonella emphasized the great things children will come up with (both in their writing and their sketching) when they are allowed to sit and experience nature. I myself have seen this, as I will discuss later on in my post on Green School. One of the things Antonella encouraged us to do was to stay in one place during each journaling session. With my self-diagnosed (thank you WebMD ;-) ) ADHD, this isn't always easy. However, I began to notice so much more about the world around me! I began to observe everything at a much deep level than I had before... and discovered so much life! Outdoor ArtAnyone who knows me also knows that art is just not my thing. I appreciate it, I love it, but I cannot seem to DO it. My students would regularly fix my whiteboard drawings so that I would be embarrassed if another teacher walked in my room (which means yes, my elementary students kick my butt in artistic ability!). As a result I wasn't really looking forward to the art session of the conference. I figured it would be all sketching and maybe some watercolors... blech. The first activity we did was flower-pounding. I wish I had a photograph to share with you... but I was too busy pounding the bejeebus out of my plants. It was fantastic. It was amazing. It was completely shocking to find out how much color you could get out of a leaf or piece of grass! Don't we all have students who would love to play around with hammers? Don't we all want to hit something just once in awhile? We also tried out some land art. Ever heard of the artist Andy Goldsworthy? He is one of my favourites, so this activity was right up my alley. Plus it could be done from Pre-K (arranging stones, weaving grass through fence) to high school. Every part of this conference was amazing... as always, I wish I took more photos but alas, I don't always think of those things until later!
If you have any opportunity to participate in an Evergreen Outdoor Classroom Institute take the chance! |