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Today I wish I could have called in grumpy. I was short and snippy and out-of-whack. Unfortunately, I can’t turn off all other parts of my life when I enter the classroom even if that classroom is a magnificent park.
Our last visit to Camp Long was magical and fantastical. This time it took me a while to ease into the beauty of it all. I don’t know if it was just me, or the kids were feeling my mood or if they were just a bit wacky-on-the-junk-of-kid-dom today but their usual “high energy” felt a little manic for the first part of the morning. I felt like I was constantly (about every 45 seconds or so) yelling at the kids ahead on the trail to “COME BACK.” Half of my brain was saying, “They are fine, just let them run – even if you can’t see them.” Then the other half of my brain would come up with, “Michelle, who knows what’s up ahead and are you crazy, you’re responsible for all of them (jeez, I need a pay raise.) The second part of my brain won when one of the paths ended at a road with an open gate – what are they thinking?
Anyway, after the first visit to the pond and lunch, we searched out a new trail and started a scavenger hunt. Then we sat in a circle, held hands and did a little meditating. We listed to the sounds all around us and closed our eyes. We heard birds come closer and the stream that I had previously been trying to get them to hear by yelling over their yelling (that never works if you are thinking of trying it.) When we opened our eyes, the canopy over our heads was so green against the sky and everyone just sat and really took it all in. Then we got our pencil’s and paper and drew what we saw. Well, this did it. I was healed, they were finally into the nature of it all instead of just running by it (which has it’s place as well.) The rest of the day was just as it was our first time out, full of beauty and wonder (although I’m sure it was all beauty and wonder to the kids for the entire day-I’ve learned over the years that my perception and theirs are definitely two different beings.)
I just had to share this since everyone should know that everything isnt’ just roses and cake in our little family. We’re just like a family actually – sometimes mama should just stay in bed!
Here is all the wonder we found today none-the-less…
Rock climbing:
“There is so many mysterious things to find.” ~Harriette
A Mallard Family:
Lily pads:
Finding bugs:
Tree Climbing:
Harriette IS the cat!
The beauty of baby ferns:
Drawing the world around us:
Bleeding Hearts:
Our smorgasbord of treasures. We came across a pond that had dried up and there were frog eggs in the mud, so we carried them to Tadpole Pond.
Asher’s egg collection:
Thank you Kathleen and Koko for helping me out today.
What a sad day today was. Around 10ish, I walked over to say hi to the Guinea Pigs and I saw that Turkey was laying on his side, which he never does and he wasn’t moving. I tried to move him and he didn’t respond. I made sure he was dead and then I called the kids over. We talked about Turkey and what might have happened to him and how Guinea Pigs don’t live very long.
Then we sat down to talk. We decided that we wanted to write a poem for Turkey. Here is what we wrote.
Ode to Turkey
Turkey, you were white and brown and soft. ~Harriette
Turkey, you were really nice and I really liked you. ~Oscar
Turkey, we’re sad that you died but you might turn into something else and we love you. ~Violet
Turkey, I love you and I loved playing with you and I’m very sad that you died. ~James
Turkey, I liked to pet you. ~Neve
Turkey, I’m too sad and can’t stop crying to tell you how I feel. ~Asher
Turkey, I hope you turn into a crab. ~Zavier
Turkey, I liked you and when I pet you, you were very gentle. ~Justin
Turkey, I love you and I will miss you. ~Jackson
Turkey, I love you and you were really kind. ~Isabel
Turkey, I love you and I’ll miss you. ~Sophia
Turkey, you were our friend for a very long time and you made so many kids happy everyday–thank you. ~Michelle
When it was Asher’s turn he just cried and cried. We were all silent and I held him and we talked about what a sad moment this was. Turkey has been with us for three years. The kids then decided they wanted to make cards to send with Turkey on his journey. At lunch, Sarah read our poem to the entire school. We received many cards from the other classes to go with Turkey as well. After lunch we had a processional through the school. Harriette made a casket out of tin foil. Then we put him in a box with all of our wishes. Sarah took pictures as we said goodbye to Turkey.
Sarah and I dug a hole under the apple tree and we all put a hand full of dirt on Turkey. Asher stayed and stayed with Turkey and didn’t want to leave. Sarah found us some flowers to plant on his grave.
We love you Turkey and will miss you so very much.
The Earth (a linked pearl poem for earth day)
The earth is round and blue and green. ~Michelle
We liven on earth like animals. ~Brigit
The earth helps us live and survive. ~Jackson
The has plants that look like tentacles. ~Oscar
There are fifty states in the United States that is on earth that helps the animals live. ~James
The earth helps plants grow because it gives them water and sun. ~Justin
Don’t pollute the earth or everything on the earth will die. ~Isabel
The earth grows trees that are brown and green on top and they help us live and make sap. ~Asher
Me and my mama weed our garden, which help the plants grow. ~Sophia
There is an ocean so dark with a lot of sea creatures in it like crabs and octopus. ~Zavier
I like flowers because they make our earth beautiful. ~Neve
I like animals on the earth because they make me feel happy. ~Harriette
We have been delving into poetry. Reading my favorites, finding new poets together and the kids have been bringing their favorites from home.
Here are some of the books we’ve read:
We LOVE this author and have read many of his books together:
Some silly, fun verse:
We really like Edgar Allen Poe and some of the other classics:
We are listening to classic poetry on CD as well:
We’ve been talking about poetry and how some of it rhymes and how all of it has rhythm to it. I’ve talked about how I write poetry and how much I love it and we are going to try writing some together this next week.
As a responsible teacher who tries to include all aspects of the world into her classroom, I thought and thought about how we could celebrate earth day and then it hit me, we celebrate earth day EVERYDAY in and out of our classroom. We spend so much time outside exploring the world, at parks, at nature reserves, planting our organic garden in our yard, taking care of the animals we find, reusing materials, eating and drinking from reusable containers, using our library, talking the city bus everywhere we go, talking about litter and picking up trash on our walks, using water and paper products responsibly, having recycling and compost in our classroom as well as in our garden, talking about large corporations and factories and why it is so great to wear second use clothing and buy used toys. The environment in our classroom, gives the sense that it is earth day EVERYDAY and that is what earth day should be.
…about how great our classroom is!
Check out educator, Ed Darrell’s post about us:
Our visit to Daystar was so lovely.
Violet read one of the stories she has written, “The Tortoise,” to the seniors.
Sophia read her story “My School.” And I read Harriette and Isabel’s stories for them.
And we took Rosa, the dog, with us today. She loved Castle Park.
Asher, Oscar and Sean in a tree(thanks Sean for joining us and for getting Oscar out of the tree.)
Puppy love. Having Rosa with us was such a wonderful time. She changed the way some kids feel about dogs, chased away fears and dosed us with her peaceful love. “Rosa, I love you so much.” ~James
Then we watched a wasp build its nest. We felt amazed to be able to watch such an event.
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We also watched some of our frog eggs hatch into tadpoles while we were doing some specimen drawing. One swam right out of the egg sack while we were looking in the tank. The egg sack began to float down in such a beautiful dance as the tadpole took its first few swims. It was so exciting.
I know I always say it but I have to say it again–I love this class so much. They all inspire me everyday to keep seeing the beauty, love and magic in every moment of the day.
And because about 100 people read this blog everyday, you are seeing into a world that has been Sarah (our director) and my passion and dream. It can be done! We ARE doing it!
2007, “My School”, By Sophia Maria Fava
“Hi. My school. I want to tell you about my friends. “
“Here is my friend Isabel. Here is my freind Harriette.”
“Here is my friend Violet. Here is my friend Oscar.”
“Here is my friend Neve. Here is my friend Zavier.”
“Here is my friend Asher. Here is my friend Jackson.”
“Here is my friend Brigit. Here is my friend Justin.”
“Here is my friend James. Here is my teacher. Her name is Michelle.”
“That was my school. This is what I did today.”
“This is my story.”
“The End”
Sophia read her book to our class. She is going to be reading to the preschool classes this week.
We planted seeds for starts and we planted the same seeds directly into the garden so we can see the differences in growth. The peas we planted from seed are so much heartier than the starts we planted.
We played shape/color bingo in Spanish.
One of my favorite journal pages. Zavier has a secret code language he writes. The way he draws and writes, has such symmetry and beauty.
Here are our frog eggs. They grow a little each day. You can now see the heads, tails and gills. They are fascinating and we can’t keep our eyes off of them.
We made a birthday bar graph. After we all made cards with our birthdays, we taped them to our birth months. Then I asked the kids; “What does this graph tell us.” This is what they said; “When our birthdays are. The months of the year. What kind of birthdays we have. Who’s birthday is in what month. How many birthdays are in each month. Helps us remember our birthdays and who is in our class.” How smart are they???
We were barely out of the car and they were off. You’d think they’d never been outside before.
Little did I know what they knew – a giant mountain of stone lay directly ahead.
After our climb which was exhilarating, fun and nearly made the parent volunteers faint, we stopped for a snack and looked through our frog reproduction books. We were so hoping to see frog eggs at the pond.
And boy did we!
We even sorted them by developmental stages.
Sadly, in the middle of all our wonderful discoveries, Brigit got stung twice by a bee. It was very traumatic but after a while she let me take a photo for prosperity sake.
We were all getting a little haggard, so we had some lunch and then went for a hike on the Animal Track Trail.
We discovered animal prints, plants, flowers, mushrooms, nettles, the remedy for nettles.
And mud.
And Huck Finn.
And old friends, keeping pace to only the rhythm of their conversation.
The trail came out at ANOTHER rock wall. This was the most amazing climbing adventure.
We are going to try to go to Camp Long at least once every two weeks, if not weekly this summer. We’ll keep you posted on the frog evolution at the pond. We also have a frog exploration happening in the classroom that we’ll check in on.
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