Curriculum Work
Rhonda and I did research on projects involving walking through the woods with kids since SarahBear wanted us to include in our project walking through the Evergreen woods at F lot. We decided to have the kids sing songs, sense their surroundings, and make a collage using materials from the forest floor as their big project. The city bus would be our transportation. We would iniate a song and the sensing of the forest. We would stop about halfway down the path (since they cannot hike too long), and have a snack. It is here that we would make an announcement about the project we were going to do. We would explain we are going to collect things from the forest floor only, as to not disturb the life around us. We would also explain that next week we are going to use these materials to make a collage, which they all know the meaning of; we asked the week before our hike. A bag would be emptied into until full and then the materials laid out to dry until next week.
During the collage making, Miss Hillary and Miss Sarah will call on who would like to go into the other room and do a special project with Tara and Rhonda. Half of the kids will go with us, half will stay and play with their new toys.
In the room we will be in, we will set up bowls of glue, paintbrushes, contruction paper cut in half, markers, and all of the nature we had collected last week. After the kids sit down, we will explain again what we are doing, and how to use the glue properly. Then we will all start making our collages, including Rhonda and I. We will encourage the kids to make whatever they want, to let their imaginations take over. I will amke a suggestion about making your favorite place, or a picture for a family member for kids who have trouble getting started. We will ask the kids questions about their artwork and tell them how great they are doing. If someone is not participating, we will encourage them to the best of our ability. The next group will repeat the same.
After all is said and done, the art goes up on the wall.
The goals I would like to see the kids achieving are experiencing nature, respecting nature, and seeing its beauty. I would like to see them really use their imaginations, this will be new for me.
My personal goals of this activity are mainly to get a better understanding of kids. To learn the different personalities of kids, to learn how they react differently to things, how they learn differently. To gain patience with them, to learn how I can best get through to them. This is a big step for me in learning all of this.
Reflection: The walk through the woods was lovely. It was a nice day to go hiking in the forest, and we all stopped and looked around, then closed our eyes and smelled the trees. We all looked up to the treetops and the sky. We felt the wet forest floor. The collecting went so well. It didn't stop until we got back to the bus. The kids had a ball! Leaves, twigs, mosses, lichens, sticks, pinecones. The fresh smell of damp trees surrounded us as we scurried to pick up things to go in the bag. We filled it right up!
Reflection: The collages were a lot of fun. The glue was used properly. The imaginations ran wild! Most kids made their collage for someone else. They seemed to find it easy to make them-they dove right in and knew just what to do. I also had a lot of fun, and I also made mine for someone else. Some of the kids used just forest materials, some used forest materials and markers, and one used just markers. Everyone's was so different. They listened very well to anything Rhonda or I had to say. I'm so glad we did this.
Evaluation: I think the overall project went well. We accomplished everything we planned on and everyone seemed to enjoy it. The kids loved being outside and collecting things to bring home. It was a good way to connect with nature. I would like in the future to be able to spend more time coming up with an activity that might be geared more towards academic learning, such as names and/or uses of plants. I was not sure at the beginning of my time at Flowerchild exactly how the kids learned and how much I could teach them. This was a good beginning activity. I now have a good idea after interacting with them. I am looking forward to lesson-planning in my future. I have already started.
