Wednesdays at Weiland - Episode 5 - Fun Without Sun

Wednesdays at Weiland - Episode 5 - Fun Without Sun

Nature is my Prescription

Being an educator away from my students is heartwrenching. Having that time away being this time of year is heartbreaking, especially for a nature kindergarten classroom. This is the time of year where we'd be living outside. Planting. Birding. Playing. Living!

I am very fortunate to be able to use some of this time to spend more nature time with my own three children and I am having a blast seeing them in action but yet, a part of my yearns for my classroom and my other kids. I was happy to take my own children to our outdoor classroom and trail today and experience an array of awesome adventures. But though these filled me with joy, knowing I won't be able to share these same experiences with my class destroyed me.

Luckily, nature is my prescription to ease the symptoms of missing my students. While I wish we could be together, I can still share with them my own experiences and inspire them to create their own.

When I am not parked in front of a screen making lessons, meeting with colleagues, researching new technologies, or virtually connecting with my class, I am seizing every opportunity to get outside. My family is volunteering to monitor a local pond. We are making a fun nature show every week. We are visiting "new to us" segments of our favorite trail, the Ice Age Trail. We are creating a natural play area in our own backyard. We are doing as much as we can to fill the void left behind from our time away from school.

This is great medicine. But the bigger dose of healing I am receiving is seeing these same types of actions in others.

My kindergarten team planned a week's worth of nature activities to ease up on the screen time and offer our families a new alternative. The outcomes I have seen from my students has been amazing. Creativity. Problem-solving. Collaboration. Fun!

One of my current students and family offered to build a structure for our trail's natural play area.

A former student keeps me updated on her birding adventures. What she finds. Where she finds them. Her next goal.

My social media feed is filled with friends and family sharing outdoor adventures and resources.

I miss school. I really do. But until we all get back, at least we have nature. It teaches us so many things. It provides so much joy. And above all, it makes our world, our communities, and our physical and emotional selves more resilient and compassionate.

Enjoy today's adventure.

Nature Ninja Warrior - Embry and Oakley

 Nature Ninja Warrior  - Arden

Natural Play

 The dreaded garlic mustard

Eastern bluebirds on the way!!!

The killdeer were not happy to see us.

Until next time . . .

Wednesdays at Weiland - Episode 4 - Nature Math

It's a beautiful day for some nature math. Do you think you know the answer to this very important nature question? Watch episode 4 of Wednesdays at Weiland to find out.

Waukesha County Land Conservancy - Weiland Preserve

Wednesdays at Weiland - Episode 3 - Garlic Mustard

It's Garlic Mustard Pulling season. Enjoy episode 3 of Wednesdays at Weiland to see how easy and important it is to get rid of this invasive species. I'm sure Embry and/or Nature Detective would love to your pulling in action. Consider taking the five minute challenge she poses in the video and sending her a picture at p_dargatz@yahoo.com.

Wednesdays at Weiland - Episode 2 - Nature Birthday

In celebration of Embry's birhday, please enjoy the second episode of Wednesdays at Weiland.

Citizen Science

Spring is an amazing time for nature kindergarten. We should be planting native flowers, pulling garlic mustard, checking nesting boxes, collecting bugs, and connecting with each other and nature TOGETHER. The sounds of nature, learning, and play should fill the air along with migrating birds and newly hatched insects.

But instead, I see them through a screen. I hear them through a speaker. It just isn’t fair. I can only send them so many links. I can only share and hear about so many adventures. I can only assign so many “nature” assignments. What we do best can’t be assigned. It can’t be taught. It can only be experienced.

We can try everything imaginable to “virtually” connect but it just isn’t the same.

It’s not all gloomy skies and teary eyes though.

Full of muck. Muddy boots. Scrapes. Smells. Just the way we like it.

I’m experiencing nature in my own neighborhood with the three best nature discoverers I know. My own children. The oldest and I have been knee-deep (literally and figuratively) in ephemeral pond investigations as part of a wonderful citizen science project organized by our county parks. We’re daily trapping, collecting, and identifying about frogs, crayfish, macroinvertebrates, and anything else we can find in our local pond. Our silent sit spot sessions are consistently interrupted by the call of native songbirds, the chatter of woodland mammals, and the chorus of frogs.

We’re not following any lesson plan, but we’re learning more than we ever could imagine. But more important than any of the nature knowledge we’re acquiring is the deepening and broadening of our love for nature and the connections with the earth we are building as a family.

Sharing our findings has become a daily joy. Whether it is the daily Facebook posts my daughter posts on my page to share with our nature friends or whether it is the new “nature show” we’re creating and posting to connect others with our experiences, I have been enamored with the initiative my oldest daughter has taken to spread her love of the natural world with anyone willing to listen. She is learning more than ever before and developing amazing skills across the developmental spectrum all because she has the time and opportunity to do so.

No lesson plan. No standardized assessment. No homework. Just time. Just opportunity. Just experiences.

Wouldn’t it be nice if every child could do the same?

Well, they can and thanks to many amazing nature-based educators, they are. Let’s keep the momentum this isolation had forced on us and “slow down to move forward.”

Welcome to Wednesdays at Weiland!

With virtual teaching being at the core of my current essence, I have had the opportunity to enhance my technological prowess. I am certainly not very skilled yet, but my daughters have taken notice and asked to be included.

My oldest asked if we could create a TV show. She was hoping we could create one where we could teach kids about nature. Well, with my budding videography skills and a nature preserve just down the block and easily accessible during these times of social distancing, it was worth a shot.

We present: Wednesdays at Weiland!

(Additional video segments were deemed too long to download and place on this blog. Apologies.)