Our First Week Exploring Outside

On our first day outside, the students engaged in David Sobel's 'children and nature play motif' of hunting and gathering.








They collected natural items in our different natural spaces that they could use in their outdoor classroom.

The next day they sorted the natural items (loose parts) into containers that they could store them in and began to use the loose parts as they explored the outdoor classroom.

On our third day, we chose our class evergreen tree that we will observe throughout the year. The students used their senses to explore the bark and "spikes". They heard and identified the song of a Chickadee that was in the tree.

They compared the "spikes" to the "spikes" of a nearby evergreen tree. They identified that the "spikes" of our tree were greener and the "spikes" of the nearby tree were bluer.







They noticed that the bark was sticky. The students thought the sticky part looked like "oatmeal and syrup."









The students' favourite part of the tree was the "handle"that they could hang from.










They had different theories as to why a part of the bark looked different. After discussing it, they agreed that a branch used to be attached to the tree at that spot. Some thought that the branch fell off, some thought that the wind made the branch break off, and others thought that someone cut the branch off.

We are all wondering what type of evergreen tree our class tree is.

On our last day of our first week, the students explored using different natural materials to make nature mandalas.