Outdoor Classroom Explorations
/We spent many hours outside exploring our outdoor classroom this week. Our outdoor classroom has six gardens filled with a variety of native plant species. We were especially thrilled to discover that the mason bees have been busy in our meadow garden. We observed them flying around the meadow, pollinating flowers, laying eggs, and building mud walls around their eggs. The mason bees have a wooden home attached to the gazebo so that we can closely observe and marvel at their daily activity. Earlier this week students played a version of bingo that involved finding 16 specific plants around our outdoor classroom. We are learning the names and characteristics of many of these plants. We’ve also been spending quiet, meditative time in our outdoor classroom. Today we examined different types of nature journals before students had an opportunity to find their own quiet area in our outdoor classroom to listen, observe, sketch, and create their own nature journal entry. We will return to our nature journals each day next week. Inside our classroom we have a new enclosure with three praying mantis oothecae (egg sacs). This week praying mantis nymphs emerged from two of the oothecae. There are now dozens of praying mantis nymphs for us to observe in our classroom. They’ve been feasting on tiny fruit flies. Our painted lady butterflies have remained in their chrysalises all week. Occasionally we noticed the chrysalises shaking. We are expecting them to emerge sometime next week. Today we also visited the Taylor Meade Auditorium to watch a mariachi band and dancer perform.
