Our class believes in working hard and playing harder. This week, we cleared a space that had become an impromptu play area for the community during the pandemic and prepared it for a prairie planting.
We moved logs and rocks that held own a restoration tarp and moved them to our official natural playa rea. Then, we took that new open space and dispersed a variety of native prairie seeds.
After dispersing the seed, we blanketed it with sawdust and watered it down. The seeds will "winterize" over the next few months and hopefully transform this space into a more diverse prairie come spring.
It's wonderful to teach children about this process, gratifying to see them involved in the actual work, and exciting to see what develops of their connection to the land.
Of course, hard work deserves a play break. Actually, play is work, just in a different way.
We climbed trees, moved more wood, found critters, and even discovered a decomposing opossum.
With making connections a focus of our reading instruction, we read various books related to the harvest and gardening. What better way to wrap up the week than to read a story in the garden.
After hearing about the process of the work it takes to grow a plant from seed, we had some fun making our own garden with creative writing ideas. We had donut trees, cookie bushes, and waterslide plants. We also investigated the blooming sunflowers still holding on to color in the chill autumn air. Soon, we'll be harvesting those seeds and working on taking care of a plant of our own.
We also completed our weekly spelling practice using sticks and logs. It was much more fun that paper and pencil. Any guesses on some of our letters this week?
Of course, we also made more time to play and explore.
