Timberwolf Trail - Week 2 - 2015-16 Edition

Week Two is in the books. With it already being a short week and Mother Nature showering us with torrential downpours in spurts, finding time to get out was a bit tricky, but we managed to get out on the trail a few times.

This week, rather than just hiking and/or doing a specific math lesson, we started working towards our full forest kindergarten implementation. On two occasions, we took out our growing outdoor supply bin and our notebooks and explored both on and off trail for a nice "sit spot."  Essentially, this place was a location where we could sit, observe, and record in both words and pictures what we saw, heard and possibly even smelled. In the future, we will be returning to these same sit spots and looking at how everything is changing. While only a few children seem settled on their sit spots right now, a couple days of practice certainly didn't hurt them in their journey.

Of course, we also couldn't hep but take a few minutes for some natural play. Talking about and then watching students go off trail and fully immerse themselves in nature was pretty amazing. They loved that some of the grasses and plants out grew them. They were thrilled to find hidden boulders and plants they couldn't see from the trampled path of the trail. We chatted about goldenrod, the predominant plant of the field, while searching for milkweed and coneflowers as well.

I look forward to adding in some new elements next week and seeing where the kids take me on this adventure.

Prairie restoration has begun!