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Buzzing & Blossoming:
Headline: We're Back Outdoors Full Time!
We can't wait to tell you all about our adventures and adaptations as we move our program fully outdoors.
But first, a rewind to the weeks before spring break...
Spring has arrived! Both the calendar and the weather are telling us that spring is well on its way, although we know to also still expect some cold days, too. As we pull the spiles out of the maple trees and wash the sap buckets, we are noticing new life below the maple trees. Our campus is full of buds bursting, and we became spring detectives to try to spot blooms alongside other signs of spring.
"The tree is taller than me now!"
"Let's put sticks here to protect this flower."
"The sun is warm and gives us shadows."
"Our big snowball is almost melted."
"I spotted spring!"
While outside, we also took the opportunity to fill up some bird feeders that had been empty over the winter. We hoped that we would see birds right away and, when they didn't immediately appear, some students thought of hiding and building camouflage so that the birds could come and feed without being scared away by us. We still didn't spot any birds by the end of that playground time, but we hypothesized that they might need more time to find the feeder. We will keep checking back!
We have also been practicing our close observational skills inside. We started with a forsythia branch harvested from Samantha's parents' yard. We looked closely at the shapes and colors in the branch, and then used Sharpies and watercolors to draw and paint what we saw. We were surprised by what colors appeared to our eyes when we looked closely! We were excited to see what colors would emerge when the buds on the branches finally opened.
After a long weekend, we returned to school to find that the forsythia was in full bloom! We returned to our studio table to make another observational painting, noticing the changes in shapes and colors that had occurred. These observational paintings were wonderful scientific exercises, strengthening our visual memory, developing fine motor strength and control, and support development of spatial awareness. Drawing with accuracy (rather than imagination) also encourages focus on the truth, allowing children to organize information and knowledge, while separating misconceptions or stereotypes from what they see in front of them. We can't wait to share the forsythia "before and afters" during our upcoming conferences!
To connect and extend our outdoor explorations, we have opened a flower shop and a bird sanctuary inside our classroom! The flower shop is filled with potting materials, buckets and bins, shovels and rakes, and of course flowers. The Fungi Friends have been planting flowers, building bouquets, and creating flower arrangements as they familiarize themselves with different varieties of flowers. We have also "adopted" a slew of birds, along with nests, "grubs," natural materials, and building materials so the Fungi Friends can help take care of injured birds. We talked about what a sanctuary is and understanding humans' roles in caring for wild animals. This kind of play, where children interact with materials that represent an environment in miniature, is called "small world play." Children can recreate experiences they have had in real life or use their imagination to develop their own stories. Small world play helps children understand the world. Small world play encourages creativity and emotional development, develops sharing and teamwork skills, builds language, and helps children apply every day learning to their play while gaining an understanding of the world.
We also decided to try an experiment related to all the growing we have been thinking about. We asked the children what an experiment was and they shared it was "when a scientist tries something." Luckily we have plenty of scientists in the Fungi Friends, as we explained a scientist is anyone who likes to makes guesses try things out. For our variable in our bean experiment, we decided to try out different levels of sunlight via the different windows in our classroom. To keep everything else the same for a proper experiment, we all used glass jars, 1 paper towels, 2 tablespoons of water, and 2 beans. We have been checking our beans every day, carefully recording our observations with drawings, dictations, and in our "Bean Experiment" report. Unfortunately, after a few days and a long weekend, we noticed that our beans had dried out. This was the perfect moment to revisit the goal of experiments and we decided to try again after spring break, this time planting our beans in soil with the hopes that it would help them retain water so they could grow.
What happened? What could we do differently?
Isa - Mine is really dry. I see some whiteness and blackness.
August - Both of my beans have cracks.
Emily - Mine feels slimy.
Annie - Something is coming out of mine.
Sophia - The extra skin is falling off of one of mine.
Hazel - It feels soft in there.
Kekeli - My bean is getting super squishy and sticky.
Neta - Mine has some mold on it but it feels squishy and is cracked open.
Hailey - Over here it’s a little purple.
Alec - Mine is opening.
Asher - My little thing is getting bigger and it has a sprout.
Angie - Mine has opened a little bit.
Merritt - Mine has a long sprout.
Sula - Mine is cracked open.
Perryn - It cracked open.
Eleanor - One of them has a little sprout like a baby worm and the other one I can’t really see.
Nathan - It’s bumpy with a little hole like it wants to sprout but it didn’t.
Xochitl - My bean has a tiny hole and the other has a crack.
We couldn’t water them on the weekend.
Some has more sun than other ones.
Give them lots of water before we leave.
Too much made them moldy and not enough water made them dry.
We should try planting in soil!
Back to the present!
Embracing the outdoors for our full day brought joy and excitement to our first days back together! The Fungi Friends were also positively gleeful to see each other after so many days apart. While our daily schedule is the same, parts of our day are different due to the setting, so we spent time this week reviewing our routines and rituals while introducing new ones. We kept our anchors and traditions, like settling in with sketchbooks and books, and added new activities and adventures to take advantage of our outdoor space and the weather, like the water table and two trips to the creek.
Our first trip to the creek on Wednesday was observational, building on the skills we had practiced before spring break. We checked in with our senses during and after our visit, asking ourselves what did we noticed, saw, heard, felt, touched, smelled, etc. There was so much new life there that we hadn't noticed on our previous visit, in later winter. Yellow, white, and purple flowers caught our eyes, and the forest floor was bursting in shades of green. Bugs abounded, in and around the water, and we even spotted a bird's nest in one of the still-bare trees. Below are two recordings we took of the water sounds, one from the left of the path and one to the right. On Thursday, we listened to the recordings together as we remembered our visit and compared and contrasted what we heard. What do you notice? Do they sound the same or different to you? What other sounds do they remind you of?
Creek Sounds Left
Creek Sounds Left.mp3Creek Sounds Right
Creek Sounds Right.mp3
What did you notice while you were at the creek?
August - I saw 3 water striders. They were basically just moving around to the rocks.
Isa - I saw flowers. Purple and yellow flowers. They were in many spots.
Neta - I saw what looked like a big ladybug in the water.
Emily - I saw a plant with Katie that is not good for the universe (garlic mustard).
Hazel - I saw an ant near the water and it couldn’t swim but it tried to.
Kekeli - I saw some bubbles on top of the creek.
Sophia - I heard the water. It sounded like water that makes bubbles.
Xochitl - It felt like coldness (the water).
Perryn - It felt like slimy (the rocks under the water).
Annie - I noticed that the water was flowing extra fast. I saw purple and yellow flowers. And I noticed the noise of the creek.
This week, we also kicked off some exciting new projects in honor of the season and some upcoming celebrations. We are creating clay birds, nests, and eggs with Nina, crafting daffodils in the studio, and baking a gigantic cake for George Washington Carver Day and Earth Day on April 21st. We had to start thinking about the cake early this week, as we realized we need to know how many people we were feeding, what their allergies were, and what kind of cake they liked! We co-wrote a letter that we delivered to each class group as well as the adults on campus and we eagerly awaited their replies so we could move to the next step of the planning process. We also discussed what the cake(s) could look like - what symbols would be meaningful to us and the Randolph School? Suggestions included the Randolph sun, fungi or mushrooms, a shell, or a cloud. We are looking forward to stretching our creative muscles!
Glimpses of our outside day!
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