Timberwolf Trail - Week 7 - 2017-18 Edition

We took advantage of some beautiful fall weather and enjoyed a variety of outdoor activities today. To review our recent work with ecosystems, we created a new chant. Next time you see me, make sure I share the following with you as we practice it a few times, increasing the volume as we go:

Ecosystem
we all are connected
Ecosystem
we all live together
Ecosystem
we all need each other
e-co-system!

Of course, after blasting out a few loud rounds of our newest chant, we took the noise down a few notches and practiced silent steps in nature with our book. The Listening Walk. Essentially, it was focused on noticing and taking in all the sounds around you by hiking without talking.

We hiked around our trail, stopping at various places to jot down some sounds we heard and sketching a quick picture. With our phonics focus being the identification of beginning and ending sounds, this was a natural fit.

With a new subdivision just tot he west of our outdoor classroom, I was worried the only things my class would hear was the beeping and thunder of the heavy machinery, but it was a calm day and the construction vehicles were nowhere to be seen (or heard).

Instead, my class had a long list of sounds they heard while they walked, mostly in silence. From crunching leaves to whispering wind, honking geese, to laughing children, and footprints to airplanes, they noticed quite a bit of sound.

Then, to continue our work with collections, we collected various natural items for a special art project. We collected twigs, leaves, and goldenrod fluff.

Then we took them inside and turned our twigs into bare trees. We ripped our leaves into shreds and added them to our trees, We then took the fluff and created wildflowers.

After some hard work (and a bit of a mess), the class had fall scenes created from natural materials.

Later on, it was back outside to continue to add to another collection: our leaf pile. Only a few more days until our fall celebration where a certain teacher may be covered in leaves.

Of course, a day of hard work in nature could only end with some natural play. We checked out

the fallen tree,

the gravel pile,

and the rock pile. All this work and play was exhausting!

We did muster up enough energy to check for bugs before heading in. The natural fun continues as we kick off our collaboration with the Retzer Nature Center tomorrow!