Timberwolf Trail - Week 4 - 2020-2021 Edition

Another week of hard work and hard play in nature kindergarten focused on prairie planting and the importance of trees.

We learned a bit about the non-native Queen Anne's Lace plant and worked in pulling some on our daily hikes.

We also replenished some of our restored prairie area with a variety of native plants, including a few of my personal favorites: spiderwort, butterflyweed, and ironweed. The students planted, watered, and watered some more.

Our explorations led to a variety of new discoveries for the kids including puffball mushrooms, the woolly bear caterillars, and the changing colors of the season.

We also took advantage of the beautiful weather to utilize some of our space for Writer's Workshop.

We also focused our attention to the needs of trees and why they play an important role in our lives.  Our investigations led us to Find Your BFT. We had a great time and can't wait to pay our BFT's another visit.

Timberwolf Trail - Week 3 - 2020-2021 Edition

What  a week! So much accomplished and so much fun had gettig our work done. We kicked off the week completing our nreading lesson and exploring our school's community garden.

                                  

We also spent plenty of time on the trail, reviewing places we've already explored and breaking ground on new explorations.

 

 

                                           

  

To review our math study of length and our reading skills of comparing, we porganized various sticks according to their length. The kids showed off great creativity in displaying and explaining their understanding.

Of course, we played as well.

                                            

On our adventures, imromptu and unexpected lessons are the name of the game. Like a famous movie line once said, "you never know what you're gonna get."  

Our final portion of the week focused more on trees. Reviewing their life cycle paved the way for introducing the needs for trees and their role in our ecosystem. We talked about how we rely on ecah other with our new chant. . . 

Ecosystem, we all are connected.

Ecosystem, we all love together.

Ecosystem, we all need each other.

E-CO-SYSTEM!

We'll be taking this beginning investiagtion into ecosystems further next week as we dig into the needs of a tree and the reasons what trees are so important to our own needs and lives.  And I am sure we will play along the way. Can't wait!

Timberwolf Trail - Week 2 -2020-21 Edition

Mother Nature certainly made our first four-day week of nature kindergarten interesting. With plenty of rain and plummeting temperatures, it was certainly different than our first few days but we made due, as we always do.

After reading one of my absolute favorite picture books, we explored a new area of our outdoor classroom: the oak tree classroom and rock pile.

We also completed our first nature journal entry and monitored a young family of turkeys.

Our first nature investigation encompassed the life cycle of trees. After researching the different stages, we traveled to another part of the trial to find real life examples.

We found seeds,

saplings,

an adult tree,

an old age tree,

and a tree decomposing into dirt.

Inside, we used our scientific skills of observation to investigate various artifacts, including bones feathers, pelts, and beehives.

We also played inour trail's natural play area.

We finished our week with our first nature art project: practicing mud painting.