Outdoor Classroom

Spending time outside together is a great way to get out of the confines of our classroom, enjoy the sunny weather, explore our surroundings, and gain an appreciation for our environment.  We are very lucky to have paths and natural grasses near our school that we can explore.  Last week we took the Super Kids show on the road!  Well, not really a road, but the natural trails outside.  We headed out with a scavenger hunt page, clipboard, magnifying glass, and a ziploc to collect our treasures.

        

Taking a close look at nature had us wondering and lead to so many questions.  Why do the geese land in the field by our school?  What animals live in the tall grass?  Why do rocks have patterns?  We took a rest on the grass and used our 5 senses.  I ask the kids to sit or lay down grass.  We looked up at the clouds and looked for shapes, animals, and thought up stories.  The class made the natural connect to our talks about cloud types and started discussing what kind of clouds were in the sky.  I then invited the kids to close their eyes and listen to what they heard such as bird chirping, tall grass moving, and the wind. Why do the clouds move so fast?  What kind of bird is chirping?  Can you make an animal shadow with your hands?  Questions, questions, and more questions.  🙂 When we returned to our classroom we had to take a closer look at our nature hunt finds.

  

Our school division puts on “Folk Dance In The Park” every year. This is a great way to get outside and enjoy a day together.  All students from grades 1-3/4  gather on one of two days to dance together.  Our music teacher teaches the class the dances and we head off to St. Vital park for a fun day of dancing.  Imagine 2000 kids in a park dancing.

    

Today our school participated in “Jump Rope For Heart”.  This is an event that raises money for the Heart and Stroke Foundation and it was a beautiful morning to go through the stations set up by our school’s Phys. Ed staff.

          

What else have we been up to?

After reading “Where The Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak the class was given a STEM challenge.  Could they make a sailboat that could withstand a wind storm? Well, it was a fan on high.  It shouldn’t take on water or capsize.  If it did then they had to modify their design.  What did we learn?  Somethings float and other sink even if you think they don’t.  Styrofoam reminds us of a dock at the lake.  Styrofoam is a mess to clean up off the floor.  Thank you to our custodian for his understanding.  Play dough is a yucky when it gets wet.  Plasticine works better.  A sail catches the wind and makes a boat go faster.

          

Our art instillation tree inspired by Klimt’s “Tree Of Life” is complete and ready to go up in the hall with the rest of the trees that every classroom created.  We’ll have an art forest!

            

Math centers are always a hit!

    

The middle years students in our school are very talented!  They put on a musical called Lion King Jr. and we were invited to go watch.  It was amazing!  The Super Kids LOVED it!

    

We added another favourite book to our class collection.  It’s called “The Sad Little Fact” and it talks about facts being facts even if others aren’t ready to accept that something is real or a fact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NBvu4doCgQ

  

 

 

 

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