Melting crayons!

Just like Hansel and Gretel needed to leave a trace in the woods so they didn't get lost, we too as a class, needed to make a path for our Minpin friends to find their way through the woods and escape the Grincher.

We cooked, yes cooked! lots of rocks collected from our forest school sessions. And then we let our artistic flare take over. These were great as they match everyone's style and they really did help make for a colourful path in the forest!

Making friends :)

So, there we were in the forest getting ready for a party with for the King Minpin and we realised that he didn't have any friends to invite. Luckily we had some stickers with us and a few creative friends!

 

Jingle sticks!

Out in the forest we like to sing songs. It's so much more fun with our own music!








We made great jingle sticks. The class found their own twigs and on a rainy day, we decorated them with yarn and bells, ready to use out in the forest.

Happa Zome 葉っぱ染め

...AKA the art of bashing flowers and leaves for their natural dyes!

Earth Day Update!

Our cuttings have grown roots and are long enough to plant!

It is important that the roots aren't too long and curled into each other, but the ivy plant is so hardy that it is difficult to make a mistake!




 We used toilet paper rolls as our planters too so there was also a sly lesson about recycling in there too. The kids found it funny more than anything else!Planting was easy and fun for the class. Of course we made a little mess, but it was great to see them getting into the spirit and pushing down on the soil, not minding the dirt at all!

Scavenger Hunt

Encouraging the class to spend more time outside isn't the hard task. Children naturally love the outdoors and can find absolutely anything to play with or, quite simply nothing at all! let their imagination run wild and see what they will develop by themselves.

As an introduction to more solid 'green' time with my class, I introduced the theme of the scavenger hunt.

They got on board really quickly and we talked about all of the thing we might find at our local 'big park'. (We are fortunate to have acces to a few parks in which we can play. Two of these parks are green and filled with trees, one has a pond with turtles (we counted over 40 this day) and some flowers too.

The only unfortunate issue about taking children to a 'green' space within the city is that they know that something else is out there. "I want to play" was the chorus after a solid, but not long enough 15 minutes of scavenging. Still, step by step for everyone and this is the first of what I hope will be may outdoor, green and wild experiences!

See my EARTH DAY post to see our pot pourri!

Earth Day

 

Rather than try a craft for Earth Day, I think the meaning is better shared with activities that directly teach what Earth Day is about - Nature.
As a class, we are propagating ivy and rooting it in water. It's a nice and simple activity, that improves the appearance of the classroom too.


After all the herbs and spices from our India activities plus the falling sakura blossoms, we made a simple pot pourri. The smells were just lovely!