Spring in the mountains means the melting of snow, and the melting of snow means we can interact with our forest classroom in new ways! Here’s a peek into a spring day with our Aspen class this week.
Helping each other with their backpacks.
In spring we enjoy the opportunity to move more of our materials outdoors, like these wooden alphabet coins.
Putting on a show in our forest theater.
Counting dots while playing a dice game.
Exploring how water moves down the river.
Tea time!
Baking in the mud kitchen.
Identifying birds in our classroom.
Stopped for a chat in the building site.
We have a special project we are working on for the end of the year so students took a break from their ‘forest work’ for a little writing and painting.
Our monthly stories are always popular with the students and we enjoy finding new ways to engage our students with the stories. One of our favorites is The Very Hungry Caterpillar By Eric Carle. Our students have been thrilled to retell the story with our caterpillar puppet this month.
The sagebrush meadow is snow free again, giving our students a little more space to roam. They are well versed in our classroom expectations and know they must always stay in sight of the teacher. Before heading off to explore one of them let the teacher know, “Do you see that tree that’s pointing up? We’re not going to go past it.”
Heading off to explore the sagebrush meadow.
They made some very interesting observations in the meadow this week. There was much interest in the sagebrush gall, which students decided were definitely snake eggs! The student below told us, “I just felt it move by itself! After dark they move really fast.”
Holding his ‘snake egg.’
Later in class two more students came across the sagebrush gall and one announced, “I found a snake egg! We don’t want to pick them and we don’t want to squish them!”
Equally interesting to the students was the ‘monster hole’ they discovered!
“I found a monster hole. Come see it, it’s humongous!”
Using binoculars to take a closer look.
Measuring the depth of the monster hole.
Our students love to work on their balance with log walking!
Sometimes students just need a little time alone. This student told me, “Miss Stephanie, I just want to be by myself.”
Taking a little alone time.
A few minutes later her classmate arrived and said, “I’m all done being alone.” To which she replied, “Do you want to be with me? I’m all done being alone too.” And off they went.
After a busy morning of work we always break for a snack.
Gathered around our forest table.
Our snack server hard at work.
Adding to our alphabet book during snack. This week we added bike and caterpillar.
While finishing our snack we enjoyed the story The Listening Walk by Paul Showers.
This is a wonderful story that reminds us that when we stop and listen, we will notice many sounds all around us. We decided to take our own listening walk after snack, and we brought our binoculars along just in case!
We heard many sounds including squirrels chattering, an airplane overhead, an excavator working, and birds in the trees. We even spotted a bird perched atop one of the park’s bird houses! Our bird guide came in handy as we did some comparing and contrasting to try and identify the bird.
Some students were inspired to stop right then and there and draw what they were seeing.
This student sat down with a map to “find out where the birds go.”
Three hours at forest school is over before we know it! Our days are filled with opportunities for students to engage in meaningful work with each other, study topics that are relevant to them right this second, be part of a community of learners, and move their bodies!
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