Adorable 4th graders

This past week we had 156 adorable 4th graders here. They were pretty cute, and very typical 4th graders. They came with every question imaginable, and didn't always want to listen to the answer. However, they were excited about everything, and they never had to be convinced that something was cool. As usual, my field group was into looking for frogs and animals. They also got to learn about shelters, and how to build a fire. They all love it here.

One of my favorite conversations from this week was with a student at dinner. This is how it went:

Student: "When did you have your first crush?"
Me: "When I was younger"
Student: *list of all of her crushes shes had* "See that boy over there, I like him, I am going to ask him out."
Boy at Table: "I thought the boy was supposed to ask the girl out?"
Student: "Whatever, they take to long!"

I noticed also with this group there was a lot of gender stereotyping. They boys thought they were stronger, the girls thought the boys were annoying. They also clearly did not want to interact with each other. I had to have many talks with kids this week about the issue. I think in schools they are perpetuating the stereotype.

As a staff this week, we all participated in chop stick challenge. How it worked was everyone was given a pair of chopsticks. Any solid foods that you ate during the week had to be eaten with the chop sticks. We all played until there was one person standing. I made it until Wednesday night. I accidentally ate some food that I was using to teach a class :(. It was still fun though.

This weekend I spent some time with the staff, since this is going to be our last week together. I also, did a lot of cleaning and packing.

For our last week we have 2 schools coming. Both are coming for 3 days, and both are 5th graders. I am teaching jellybellyology, shark dissection, inside out kid, camouflage and staking, megastructures, soccer ball digestion, and shelter building. Its going to be a very busy week.

Then on Saturday I will be moving into camp. Our staff training begins on Monday morning. I am really excited and looking forward to the new adventures camp will bring.

Here are some pictures from the week:

Only 2 weeks left at Natures Classroom

This past week we had 90 6th graders. They were very nice children. They were much more skilled at listening then our children from 2 weeks ago. They all were very excited to be at Natures Classroom. They were from Connecticut. They arrived on Tuesday and stayed through until Friday. It was a week that required a lot of flexibility. With the exception of Wednesday it was very hot! Wednesday we had rain during the morning, humidity in the afternoon, and thunderstorms at night. We had to change all of the evening programs this week. The kids still had a great time, despite last minute changes.

My filed group was pretty great this week. We called ourselves the goofy goober and they enjoyed hunting for salamanders and edible plants. They were great at working together as well, so they were able to go to our ropes course on the last day. I had one child whose name was Ethan. He was quite an old soul. He wore a Indiana Jones hat all the time. He said his mom gave it to him when he was little, and he's worn it ever since. He also told me that his grandpa has 2 '57 Chevy's. Whenever he goes to his grandpas they work on the interior of them. Ethan told me "one day, one of them is mine."

This coming week we have 155 4th graders coming! They will be coming on Tuesday and staying until Friday. I am going to be teaching shelter building, shark dissection, soccer ball digestion, and laughing yoga. Laughing yoga is all about the science of laughing. You do several exercises with the kids to make them laugh and feel happy.

This weekend I am hanging out in Dartmouth at Retha's house. We have been preparing for camp. I only have 2 weeks left at Natures Classroom before I move to Plymouth for the camp season!

Here are a few pictures from the week:

The week of waiting

This week we had a group of very chatty 6th graders. Especially when they were all together. Other than that they were pretty cool. My field group was really into walking around and looking for frogs. Every week I have the kids decide on a team name, this week my field group was the purple pencil shavings. The kids also decides this week we needed a mascot. They went with the wood frog, because we found 2 on our first field group.

Our weather this week was not very nice. It rained everyday. When it wasn't raining it was hot and muggy. There were a lot of mosquitos out.

This coming week we have another group of sixth graders coming. They'll be here for four days. I'm going to be teaching shelter building, jellybellyology, shark dissection, and WWF. WWF is a class about animal adaptations. You have kids pick an animal, then they must buy adaptations for them. After that student need to argue/defend their animal to see why it's better at surviving. In the end you pick an animal to be the ultimate survivor.

Also, sorry about the lack of pictures. My photo uploader is not working correctly. All of the pictures can be found on my Facebook page.

Weekend with my parents

This week we had 180 7th graders. It was a lot of kids. For the most part try were not to bad. They had their 7th grade moments though. My field group and I spent a lot of time looking for new trails to hike. They liked feeling like they were lost. We did a lot of hiking and talked about survival skills in the woods. So I taught them how to track and stalk prey, build fire, camouflage, and shelter building. They had a good time for the most part. They definitely went home tired at the end of the week.

This weekend my mom and came to visit. We had fun exploring Salem, Massachusetts. It was different then we were all thinking it would be. All of the historical sites are spread apart and tucked away in the city. We had to follow a red line around to find everything. (I think we thought it be like greenfield village.) The coolest thing we saw was the cemetery and witch trial victims memorial.  That night we went to a traditional New England clam shack for dinner. Afterwards we hung out watching an Indiana Jones marathon. This morning they got a tour of Natures Classroom before heading out. It was nice to see them.

This coming week we have about 90 6th graders coming. I was told that they are very intelligent but struggle with social skills. It should be an interesting week. I am praying for good weather this week, it's suppose to rain!

A long week

This past week we had 95 6th graders come and stay for the week. We had the same school, different group of students, come here a few weeks ago. As a whole the children really struggled with listening. There were a lot of daydreamers. Thankfully I had a pretty good field group. They all wanted to be here and they loved just hiking around. We discovered a lot of new trails this week. I had a student named Mason who loved hunting. He helped teach our field group all about tracking deer. We also found several species of frogs this week. Every Wednesday we have an all day hike. It goes from 9:30-2, and we make pack out lunches. I take the kids to see our tornado damage from 2011 usually. When we sat down to eat lunch, one of my students need to use the facilatrees. I taught her how and sent her on her way. I started to get worried after awhile because had been gone for a very long time. When she came back she was laughing... She had gotten pee all over her jeans! Thankfully she was a good sport about it and wasn't embarrassed at all.

This weekend I had to work at camp. I was with Retha doing boating for the day. Our morning was pretty good. The weather was nice and all the girls were kayaking and having fun. Well sadly our afternoon was not as fun. It started to get windy and rainy. we had to rescue some peddle boaters who were blown to the opposite shore. We played team building games afterwards. However both Retha and I we soaked. We had dripping wet pants and puddles in our boots. After we finished up with the girls we went to Bass Pro Shops. We had many of the staff staring at us because we were still dripping with water. Thankfully they had pants on sale :D

This coming week we have 170 7th graders coming. I am teaching tracking/stalking, megastructures, jellybellyology, shark dissection, and cultural fair. Then this weekend I am going to be taking the fam to Salem, Massachusetts!

Here are some pics from the week:

This is an american toad

This is a 400 year old tree!!

When we were at camp we got to see an owl show. Here is a saw whet owl.

My soaking wet pants after rescuing boats.

The Nutella Narwhales

This past week was great! The children were awesome. They were 5-8th graders from a gifted and talented program. Most of them were very smart and were very interested in how to survive outside. My field group was made up of 5th, 6th, and 7th graders. Every week on the first day I have my field group pick out a name. This week they voted on the nutella narwhal's. Three of my girls really like the name so they wrote the following chant for us: "We are the nutella narwhal's, we make all the important calls, we are a mix of a hazelnut spread and a whale with a horn on the top of its head". We said at the end of every field group, and they even incorporated it into our skit for Thursday Night Live. Also, this week I had a child name Taevis in my group. He was the weird but funny awkward child of the group. On the first day his best friend of the group got very homesick and had to leave. He was very sad at first because he was also the person who Taevis would play spit (the card game) with on their off time. So we agreed that everyday after lunch I would play spit with him. He was great, he even designed our field group a logo, so we could make t-shirts.

This coming week we have a group of 90 6th graders coming. I am going to be teaching salamander gander, ultra mega structures, jellybellyology, Shark Dissection, and soccer ball digestion.

Here are some pictures from the week:

Back at my home site!

This week I was back at Hill Top with the regular crew! It was good to be back with everyone. We had a great group of 6th graders come for the week. They loved everything we did with them, and loved being outside. My field group loved catching frogs and finding salamanders. We also spent 30 minutes of field group, one day, watching a bunny. It was awesome. Thankfully our weather has been beautiful as well.

This weekend I worked for the Girl Scouts. It was a mom and daughter event. I ran games all dy which pretty fun. They were all on the younger side so we played with the parachute a lot.

This coming up week we have 35 5-8 grade students coming. It's going to be a bit of a different week because they are from the gifted and talented program. So the 8th graders are going to be teaching some of our activities for the younger ones. I'm going to teach jellybellyology, shark dissection, stream stomp, and mega mega structures. Mega mega structures I'm teaching as a double with another teacher. We are going to have groups build several 3D shapes, as apposed to everyone doing one shape. Stream Stomp is where we walk through the stream to find animals. I'm looking forward to it.