Saturday, March 27, 2021

Week of March 22

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

Monday, March 22


Tuesday, March 23


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


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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