In Environmental Education, the weather has helpfully allowed the students to be exposed to all the natural elements regularly. After the week of deep freeze, the students were able to walk on the ice in the marsh. They have experienced water freezing, crystalizing, and melting. The sunshine has warmed us here and there. In and around all the weather changes, the students are busy planning and building different projects we are working on.
In First Grade, we are feeding the squirrels with the nuts we collected. The students first count the nuts they are giving to the squirrels one at a time and then two at a time, etc. This is an enjoyable opportunity to practice math. Besides that, we go on hikes to places that to muddy to traverse during the warmer months, opening up our campus more readily for our students. We played some games and went through the obstacle course, as well.
Second grade continues to work on the school compost. They turned the beautiful, composted soil onto a new spot for a flower garden Ki Ieva is planning with them. These flowers will be used to dye the wool for next year. The highlight is at the end of the lesson when we are finished working and playing some games.
The Third graders are honorary farmers by now. They do their tasks very quickly and diligently. We started to work on planters that we use to plant seeds. The students divided into pairs, took some scrap wood pieces and figured out how to measure, saw, and hammer the pieces together. We also planted some garlic, and as I’m sure the parents found out at pick-up, the students tried to eat some raw garlic. A healthy lesson learned!
Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth graders are working on the wooden water wheel. This is a very complex project that allows the students to engage in different levels of their development. Sixth Grade is doing geometry in Main Lesson, and during EE class, they are measuring the circle and dividing the planks that will create the circle. Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Grade, then continued to plane the planks. They also started angling the sides using axes and are getting close to starting to connect the pieces.
A big thank you to Top Tier Trees Company for allowing us to harvest different varieties of wood from their backyard stockpiles for our different woodworking projects. We have some amazing cherry, pear, pecan, and hickory wood that the students are using to make spoons, balls, candle holders, etc.
Warmly,
Matan
