We began 'Take Me Outside Day' gathering in the Garden Classroom at Drummond Central PS in a sharing circle with all teachers and students of grades Kindergarten to grade 6 students of Drummond Central public school. We started the day with a restorative circle sharing exercise: We passed the talking stick and shared our gratitude for nature and for time spent in the great outdoors then set off down the trail to observe and identify the seasonal changes while seeking and finding animal trails and burrows, deer bedding areas under an apple tree, dreys, burls, fungi, mycelium, autumn colors, scat, cardinal direction conversations and leaf identification...
The group sit-spot stopped everyone in mid-stride to quietly gather, stand still, listen and observe nature's classroom together in silence. A powerful moment in time to participate with 60 children and 5 teachers silencing in a group while respecting how peaceful the habitat can be without human disturbance. We continued on down the trail to share in a solo-sit-spot where all children and adults went off into the woods to find a space to sit and observe quietly alone by themselves. While participating in this activity, I observed the entire school community quietly engaging their senses while experiencing a sense of relaxed comfort in the forest located behind the school.
We headed back to the Garden Classroom to plant garlic, save seeds, mulch and put the garden bed to bed. We raked and raked and raked the leaves for mulch, mulch and more mulch and of course could not resist the temptation to jump into the pile. We weighed in the harvest and discussed differences in climate and
soil conditions to identify reasons for the differences in growth patterns between last year's growth and this years growth.
There is so much fun and creative experiential learning to do in the diversified outdoor classroom.
Thank you to Drummond Central community for the opportunity to cross curriculum strands from the indoor to the outdoor classroom. I look forward to participating in planting trees to diversify the outdoor classroom on the playground in the spring 2019.
Project Outdoor Classroom....to be continued...
