Week of March 22

Some quick notes & links about our Outdoor Classroom activities this week:

Monday, March 22

• Early Childhood: drop "naked eggs" from various heights to see if they would bounce or break, add a new song ("The Farmer in the Dell" from page 30, track 28, of This Is the Way We Wash-a-Day by Mary Thienes-Schunemann) and a new finger play ("Two Fat Gentlemen" from page 82 of The Breathing Circle: Learning Through the Movement of the Natural Breath by Nell Smyth) to our Circle Time, read The Year at Maple Hill Farm by Alice and Martin Provensen
• Handwork: set up two sun jars with different brands of coffee, prepare and dye hanks of white wool yarn
• Grammar: read What Color is the Wind? by Anne Herbauts, review the nine basic parts of speech and their Montessori Grammar colors & symbols with the oversized Grammar Symbol Tiles by Nienhuis
• Read Aloud Story: continue with Tal: His Marvelous Adventures with Noom-Zor-Noom by Paul Fenimore Cooper as our lunchtime story
• Lower Elementary: review Helen Keller, read Six Dots: A Story of Young Louis Braille by Jen Bryant, look at the dots on a domino, add Helen Keller to MLB, begin first steps of Georgia O'Keeffe art project (drawing in pencil on Bristol, adding black glue lines)
• Geography: since LE is learning about Georgia O'Keeffe in their Fearless Women study and UE is learning about the Desert Southwest in their U.S. Geography/Biome study, we read several books together

  Through Georgia's Eyes by Rachel Rodriguez

  I'm in Charge of Celebrations by Byrd Baylor

• Upper Elementary: individual reading and group sharing of 3 resources for the Southwest (Cactus Hotel by Brenda Guiberson, Dig, Wait, Listen: A Desert Toad's Tale by April Pulley Sayre, Desert Giant: The World of the Saguaro Cactus by Barbara Bash)

Tuesday, March 23

• EC: play in the rain, dig in the mud, find & carefully observe slugs and worms, tenderly bury a drowned mouse in the Peace Garden (with adult help), read "Rainbow Fairies" on page 102 of A Child's Seasonal Treasury by Betty Jones, dye Rainbow Rice in 12 colors
• Community Building: play card & board games on a rainy day (Concept, Ravine + Ravine Expansion Pack: The Spirits)
• LE: read My Name is Georgia: A Portrait by Jeanette Winter, add Georgia O'Keeffe to MLB, read Eleanor by Barbara Cooney
• UE: look at the many layers of colorful rock in Grand Canyon by Jason Chin, begin individual shoebox tapestry weaving projects for the Desert Southwest, individual reading & group sharing of 3 resources (The Goat in the Rug by Charles Blood and Martin Link, When Clay Sings by Byrd Baylor, Houses of Adobe by Bonnie Shemie)

Wednesday, March 24

• EC: sensory play with our beautiful Rainbow Rice, draw with sidewalk chalk, lie in the new green grass, swing in the hammocks, play with magic wands (yarn-wrapped sticks), help with the Water Wall project, add "Five Little Peas" to Circle Time (The Breathing Circle by Nell Smyth, page 82), read Whose Garden Is It? by Mary Ann Hoberman
• Handwork: look at our sun jar yarn dyed with two kinds of coffee
• Community Building: design & build a collaborative Water Wall based on a bunkie board frame (STEAM Outdoors with School Age Children workshop from Victoria Hackett of Outdoor-Classrooms.com)
• LE: complete Georgia O'Keeffe artwork (chalk pastels step), read about Rachel Carson, begin The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris

  Georgia O'Keeffe Art Lesson by The Crafty Ninja

• UE: review Desert Southwest (The Flute Player and Antelope Woman retold by Michael Lacapa, North America Biome Cards by Waseca Biomes), add map and facts to binder for Southwest States (NV, UT, CO, AZ, NM, TX, OK), independent reading & group sharing of 3 resources for the Grasslands (The Legend of the Bluebonnet retold by Tome dePaola, Buffalo Dance retold by Nancy Van Laan, Quillworker retold by Terri Cohlene)
• Philosophy / Structured Word Inquiry: read The Summer Day by Mary Oliver, begin SWI activity for the word < one > using a Word Bag and a hula hoop (which of these words are built on the base < one >: one, alone, lonesome, lonely, only, no one, none, atone, once, onion)

  What's In, What's Out? blog post by Fiona Hamilton (of Wordtorque)

  The Power of One blog post by Lyn Anderson (of Beyond the Word)

Thursday, March 25

• SWI: conclusion to our exploration of < one >, watch the Onion Video by Gina Cooke
• EC: outdoor free play, read The Snail's Spell by Joanne Ryder
• Read Aloud: finish Tal
• LE: read second half of The Lost Words, review Rachel Carson, discuss the modern problem of plastic pollution and read camel article, add Rachel Carson to MLB, learn about Virginia Apgar
• UE: practice capitals song, sharing of final Grasslands resources (Houses of Hide and Earth by Bonnie Shemie, Native American Sign Language: How Native Americans Used Hand Signals to Communicate by Madeline Olsen)

Friday, March 26

• EC: outdoor free play, read "How Shells Are Made" from Houses from the Sea by Alice Goudey, read Snail in the Woods by Joanne Ryder
• Art: introduction to modeling beeswax
• LE: review Virginia Apgar and the Apgar score (at one minute and five minutes after birth, five attributes, each scored on a scale of 0-2 with 10 being a perfect score), discuss eponym (the Apgar score was named after her) and acronym (the acronym APGAR was coined to help medical staff easily remember the five attributes being scored), read Crescendo by Paola Quintavalle, add Virginia Apgar to MLB
• UE: do the USA Puzzle Map, add Grasslands states to binder (ID, MT, WY, ND, SD, NE, KS, MN, IA, MO), independent reading & group sharing of 3 resources (Birdsong by Julie Flett, The Legend of the Lady Slipper retold by Lisa Lunge-Larson and Margi Preus, Journey to Cahokia: A Boy's Visit to the Great Mound City by Albert Lorenz), discuss the Great Lakes (the location of the Cree and Ojibwe peoples) and the Mississippi & Ohio River Valley (the location of Cahokia)

  note the differences between reading a Native American story which takes place now, a traditional legend, and a piece of historical fiction

  Julie Flett writes modern day stories with Indigenous characters and includes Cree words in all of her books

  discuss the Ojibwe cultural influences on my daughters' high school in WI (including that the Ojibwemowin language is taught and is used side by side with English on all of the signage at the school)

  recall our field trip to Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site several years ago... finally, we have arrived at our own geographic area!

• LE/UE: review the six parts of the biome, do the Biome Jars activity from the Backyard Biome Mat Bundle by Waseca Biomes

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