Naturalists

We started off our morning with a discussion and brainstorm:

Then everyone drew and wrote what they wanted to look for or might see today:

Colton wanted to dig in rotten logs and find “a lot of bugs.”

Jacob thought the snow would be soft. He wrote “so” for “snow.”

Kenzie also wanted to find bugs in logs or “treasure” as she called them.

Elliana wanted to find a bunny in a cave, with Kenzie.

Leah hoped to see a bunny, fox, bug, and salamander, with Eleanor.

Kenzie did find deer scat!

Sit Spots (Elliana).

Alec in his Sit Spot. He is our first “Forest Kid of the Week.” This will turn into a class book, with a kid featured each week who was very responsible, focused, and caring in the woods.

Celia in her Sit Spot.

Eleanor in her Sit Spot. Her dad, Mr. A, came today as a fire tender!

Alexis, our first grader helper, doing Sit Spots.

Leah found a tree with a big hole that she thought might be an old woodpecker hole. We dug it out but didn’t find any bugs.

This tree, right next to our fire circle, is definitely a woodpecker tree. Look at all those holes! There was a big pile of wood chips below.

Our discoveries today. Stay tuned for some detailed drawing and brave writing soon!

Forest Friday

We went out for a special Forest Friday afternoon, for Celia’s birthday circle, and because it had been so long since we’d been in our woods. There was a lot of ice frozen after yesterday’s rain!

We had a fire.

It was Celia’s birthday circle and her mom and dad brought us cookies.

Alec was “walking down the snow.” (You can clearly see the deep ravine!)

Elijah: “I slided.” His picture looks like he or someone wasn’t happy about that. Maybe because the ice made our walk out so hard?

We Love Drawing on Whiteboards!

Cold!

Tuesday after the big snow event, we were happy that it warmed up enough in the afternoon for us to go out for a short time. Recess had been canceled because of the cold. But nothing is grander than having fresh snow and the whole playground to yourself! We came back and talked about how hard and crusty the snow was, how high the snowbanks were (and good for running off, jumping off, sliding down), and how blue the sky was. The kids also noticed how the cold air felt different in your body and made it harder to breathe.

Leah: “We are playing chutes and ladders on the playground.” She labeled “twisty slide” and “ladder”

Elliana: “We are going down the slide.”

Eleanor, describing the pretend play: “We played alone in the ice and the ice was in the ocean.”  The people are saying, “Help!” “I can save you!”

Finn labeled a lot: “Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch” “the snow flakes” “the sun” “the sky” “the clouds” 

Alec drew him and Leah playing on the big snowbanks. His labels are very clear: “tree” and “the snow” 

Cameron: “We put snow at the bottom of the slides.” (This makes the ride faster!)

Elijah: “Leah and Elijah and Hunter played together.”

Every day brings something new! We really loved the snow.

Ring in the New Year!

It has been a while since we’ve posted our writing. Many of these kindergarteners are starting to write sentences! Today we did journals after our forest time.

Today was also the kickoff to the WinterKids Winter Games that our school is a part of this year. What a way to start with 28 kindergarteners in the woods on a 20 degree day! Beautiful and sunny though.

Hunter: “We slapped the trees.” He added details with the words “stick” and “the leaf on the ground.” He and Silas used sticks to break the smaller dead branches off of trees.

Kenzie needs paper with more lines, because you can see her sentence going up the side! “We were going to the wetland and we found treasure!” The treasure was ice chunks. You can see that she colored it yellow and labeled it with a post-it.

Cameron: “I slid on the slide.” He wrote “sand” to explain all his brown. There was snow in the woods, but also lots of sand.

Finn: “My friend Jacob” “the hill” “grass” “people playing a lot of the game” (continues on the back). Finn still has to finish his color, but what a lot of labels and words!

I bet most adults can read Eleanor’s without translation!

Leah: “I played outside with Eleanor and Kenzie. We played family.”

Elijah: “Ms. Atkins gave me hand and foot warmers.” The writing near the blue person (Ms. Atkins) says “gave them me.”

Hunter led the way in bringing this 20 ft stick up from the ravine for firewood.

Sweet success!!!

Mrs. Johnson’s class was out with us today. While half of the kindergarteners ate lunch, the other half went on an adventure down into the wetland. We found great climbing trees.

And broke through layers of ice.

Brynn, Brooklyn, and Tevis are skilled climbers!