Nature walk and lots more!

Do you ever have one of those days when you start off with a plan and it goes in a completely different direction?  You don’t mind because it was a great day and better then you planned.  Well, that was our day.  This morning I decided to take my class on a nature walk to find signs of fall.  The forecast was perfect…warm and sunny.  We headed out armed with ziploc bags to fill with our nature treasures and magnifying glasses to explore our community.  We were gone for a whole hour!  The class loved our walk by the ponds in our community.  They picked up leaves, goose feathers, twigs and anything else they could stuff in their bags.  We even read a story under a beautiful maple tree.  Well, half of a story until we had to change locations because of some wasps!

  

    

We headed back to school and the kids dug into their bags to examine their findings, just like real scientists.  The rest of the afternoon plans went out the window. Actually, there saved for tomorrow.  We sorted, categorized, counted, created nature pictures, and even shared our treasures with our 1/2 buddies from another class.  We watched a few science clips from “Sid The Science Kid” with our buddies about using magnifying glasses.  This is my favourite kind of day!

 

 

  

The bulletin board outside our classroom door is full with our fall birch tree art!  The class discussed the differences between warm and cool colours before creating our backgrounds for our art pieces.  The process took us a few days, but we are thrilled with the way they turned out.  If you are able to pop by the classroom or happen to be at our school, come check out our display.

  

Reader’s Workshop has taken off this week.  The kids understand how the centres work and are able to rotate through them.  During this time, I am able to pull over a “book club” to work with me.  This is a group of students at a similar reading level working on developing reading strategies.

I had to add one more picture. 🙂 One of my awesome Super Kids decided to draw me at choice time.  She even had my clothes right. I think she nailed it!

Wishing you all a super night!