Last year, students worked on whole-class projects within their classroom communities. As we began the 2021-2022 school year, I imagined that we might look at the project approach differently. What might a school community project look like? What could engage students across all age groups? I would have to wait for the students’ interests to lead me towards a project.

In November, I read two non-fiction texts aloud to all of our students, on the topic of the breakdown of trees in the forest after they fall. One, entitled Log Hotel, envisioned a fallen tree as a hotel for many different species as it decayed. The other, One There Was a Tree, detailed each species’ sense of ownership over an oak stump after the tree had fallen. The students compared both texts, then searched for examples from the books out in our woods. Finally, they completed natural journal entries about fallen trees, stumps, or decaying wood.

These activities seemed to really engage all of the kids, and I began thinking about how I might extend their learning through the winter months. The fallen trees and stumps would become covered in snow, and any evidence of the creatures who depend on or live in these “log hotels” would be less accessible. Could I bring their learning “inside” to the yurt for continued exploration?

I began by building a simple 3D cardboard “tree stump” base, and brought it into the yurt as an invitation. I asked the students, “How can we make this into a “log hotel?” Over the next few days during our warming turns in the yurt, the kids began brainstorming how they might transform the simple cardboard structure into a pretend home for many woodland creatures and plants. Then, they started adding animals, insects, mushrooms, and additional features to the pretend tree stump. The project took off...and began growing in ways I had not anticipated.

Students began expressing interest in creating items for the growing “forest floor” which weren’t nature-based. They wanted to add tiny people, animals who don’t live in a woodland forest, and homes for their tiny people. I briefly considered limiting their additions to nature, but considered what we know about learning. Kids will more deeply engage in subjects and activities that they are interested in! The village wasn’t going in the direction I imagined, but it was growing in ways that best served the children.

Once I realized that this was no longer just an art project that had extended from our Language Arts work, I began to imagine all of the connections we might make to other academic content areas. I introduced the idea of mapping our “Forest Floor Village,” adding in components from Social Studies work such as cardinal directions, legends, keys, and scale. The kids will be working on these maps in the coming weeks, whenever we have our warming turns in the yurt. In addition, students in the Upper Elementary class will be writing about their characters and their homes, using perspective as they “walk” their creatures through the village. Finally, we’ll invite families to view the project’s culmination at a Solstice celebration towards the end of December. Students will work on creating invitations for their families or caregivers as well as deciding what aspects of the project to share.

Beyond the extensions across academic content areas, students have also demonstrated the ability to connect and work in partnership with kids across multiple ages and ability levels. This is a project that is perfect for our whole school community; older students have been spotted helping younger students use the hot glue guns, spell words for labels, and brainstorm ways to make each others’ ideas come alive. Younger students have added elements to the village that older students might not have imagined, including a “Fire Station” for the village community and fantastical creatures based on the younger students’ stuffed animals.

As we continue forward with this whole school project, I am beyond excited to see what else they imagine for the tiny community they are building on the floor of the yurt and what else they build as a whole school community, together.