Jan-Feb Our Nature-Led Learning
From Tracking, to Mushroom hunting, to amphibian ID, to wild crafting with cordage to taking care of our healthy BEan Ecosystem and more
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays
Animal discovery:
How to use our field guides to help us be sleuths on our hikes and investigate who has been here?
Choosing an animal and discovering information and playing mystery animal questioning games to learn about each other's animals.
Hazards: Learning behavior and habitat of ticks; identifying poison oak in our area, dehydration, animals to be aware of and what to do if we get lost; understanding the coyote call and its importance in our group activities.
Plants: Learning about Poison Oak and how it changes from Fall to Winter to Spring
Edible plants such as Miners lettuce, chickweed, and cleavers.
Mushroom Hunting and ID! Taking our Field guide after the January rains and hunting down mushrooms!
What did we find! So many amazing mushrooms!
Discovery and discussion about the mycelium network and decomposers.
Played Decomposer game to solidify our learning!
Trees
How are trees like our Buckeye, our Elderberry, our Redwoods and our Madrones changing from Fall to Winter to Spring?
What has it left us in the late summer and fall and is now rooting into the ground?
Watching the seasonal changes in our land bases.
Social Emotional and Wellness in our Time Together
To Be Commitment Games for Reviewing group code of conduct for our time together: At A Team we practice Sensitivity to others, Right to Pass, Treat others as you wish to be treated, Honest communication and Self Supervision.
In our Nature-led outdoor programs we practice our TO BE COMMITMENTS
Using our To Be Commitments in games to review and support our healthy BEan Ecosystem and how we take care of our own bodies and take care of our relationships with each other and the land
Animal forms: Nature sensory awareness activities focusing on expanding our senses, through the use of blindfolds, hiding, sneaking, and bird language.
Sit Spot Mapping
Creating sound maps and visual maps in our sit spot time
Wild Crafting
We used cordage to make string with a twist and weave practice and bands to tie a binding.
We learned to use paracord to make survival bracelets
Learning how to tie important knots to hang our hammock and our tarp shelter
Gourd wild crating to make tiny containers
Art with Clay
Worked with clay to create our own sculpture learning how to make slip and how to use scratch and score and slip to attach arms, legs and create a wide array of art structures.
We practiced wedging to evenly distribute the moisture in the clay, align the clay particles for greater plasticity and remove air pockets trapped inside. Made pinch pots from our clay.
Tracking
Discovering animal tracks and scat, using our trifold to identify what we saw, was it prey or predator and how can we deduce and identify by what we see on our land, and other clues.
Frog hunting at our pond and wetland areas. Using our field guides to ID what frogs and amphibians, like our CA Newt and our Slender Sali!
Used the 6 arts of tracking to discover and ID the tracks we found along with other animal signs like sleeping, eating and travel and scat. Learned how to safely look at scat and ID. Used our trifold tracking books to help us uncover new mysteries in the animal signs we discovered .
Wandering:
An important part of our day, allowing for us to move and explore
We wander throughout the land without time, without destination, agenda, or future purpose; it allows us to be present in the moment; and go off-trail wherever curiosity leads.
Hiding, Seeking and Sneaking:
We played a lot of games incorporating our maps and indicators of awareness we had in our internal map memory.
The excitement of hiding, seeking and sneaking pushes the senses into a mode of alertness like that of predators and prey.
Hiding accessed practicing sitting still which was good for our sit spot routine, stretching out our short attention spans.
Seeking enabled us to use our antennae and become ultra aware, expanding our senses. Sneaking gets us into moving slowly and intentionally, fox walking and using our deer ears, using all our senses to become very aware of the seeker to stay safe.
We use bird language to listen for the birds to signal that a human is approaching. We discussed why birds signal each other and how this disables the predator from catching a tasty prey bird lunch.
Geology
Using a Song to help us remember Sedimentary, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic
Investigating our local home bases each day, looking at the rocks we discover, what types of rocks are we finding at Anderson, ST Creek, Felton and Palo locations?
Using our guide books to ID science kits with rocks to ID
Our goal will be to build relationships to the environment and to each through
writing in response to their sit spot
nature sketching and journaling
We are using a journaling prompt call I see, I wonder, It reminds me of to get us focused
Thanksgiving:
We explored the idea of thanksgiving and why we open our circle up each day in the Mohawk tradition of Thanksgiving Address.
Our group explored the way this unites us and gathers us for our day and how it roots us in our hearts to the land.
How we can pass the talking object to support listening while our friends and teachers are sharing, knowing we will share soon when the talking object is passed to us.
We use songs each morning and share the history of the songs we bring, who brought them to us and where they originated.
Story of the day:
a digestion at the end of our day on what we did, what we saw, what was our favorite part, the funniest part, the most challenging part and epic parts of our day