March 2006
We began the month by learning about the prairie.
The first settlers to our community described the landscape as open prairie interspersed with oak trees and other hardwoods. So our first activity of the month was to hike around our town and map out what we saw. We then worked indoors to create maps of what our community once looked like during presettlement times. We discussed the prominent landmarks in our town now, and what the prominent features would have been over 100 years ago.
We learned about the Sioux Indians of the prairies and the kids learned how to do the Grassy Dance, a traditional Sioux dance that is often the first to be performed at pow-wows. We worked with clay and made clay coil pots as the native americans of the prairies once did.
We lost one day as school was canceled due to a winter snow storm. The following week, we saluted spring with a game of kickball outside.
As March came to a close, we traveled down to a nearby state park for a Spring Phenology hike to observe the seasonal changes of nature. The kids were divided into teams and sent out to find a list of items on a scavenger hunt sheet. We concluded the day with a brief introduction to Maple Syruping and tied the whole month together by revisiting the theme of Native Americans and their connection to the natural world and the seasons.
As I reflect on the past month, I struggle to understand what is the best dose of nature that will help these kids to develop a life-long awareness of the environment. Due to administrative constraints, our program went from every day after school this past fall, down to one day a week this spring. I observed that when the program was held every day, the kids seemed to be turned-off by nature. It was just too much outdoors for kids who had rarely ever played outdoors.
But now I have flipped the scale and I can see that one day a week may not be enough to allow them the consistency needed to keep the outdoors at the forefront of their consciousness. I guess that is why we call this a “pilot project”. We are learning as we go here!
