Deepti's+deliberations

April 10-13 Tracey and I took our kids for a walk to the Conservation area to have a look around to see what makes it special for everyone. Peaks- the kids actually all sat, (some laid their coats on the ground, closed their eyes to listen quietly to the waterfalls) and watched the geese swimming near by. There was a lot of curiousity and questions about th e signs posted at the Cons.that gave information about the potholes and the various animals found there. Pits: As we were starting the walk, the kids started picking up various items from the ground - we stopped and talked about the importance of leaving things where we find them Upon our return to the classroom, the grade two's had a KBC to answer the question: Is the Conservation important to us? Some really awesome discussion ensued. As a closing task, they were asked to make a postcard that would convince someone of the importance of the Conservation area or would encourage someone to come and visit the Cons. Using some of the ideas from our KBC, the kids made lovely pictures and wrote about the trees, animals, fishing, canoeing and other reasons why their friend or cousin should come to the Cons! We're going to pass these onto the Nature Centre Staff when they come to vist in the next few weeks! Any other advice to extend this activity would be welcome.

May 6-10 We've gone out a couple of times this week - we read the great book Walk in the Woods - Who's been here? We then went looking to see if we could find any evidence to support who's been here? We found sticks and logs that interesting designs or writing as one of my kids said - I asked them to find out which creature would make marks like that on the sticks - after some research from one of the kids it was discovered that carpenter ants had been chewing up our forest. The kids wanted to know why they were called carpenter ants - my best guess is that it's because they use wood - the discussion was that carpenters are helpful but the ants are definitely not so should not be called carpenter ants. Went out and purchased some sit-upon mats today - going to cut them up and go out with Tracey's class tomorrow. My concern still remains childrens safety - I still have 3-5 boys who ttend to wander and are all over the place and don't appear to be focused on the task - any suggestions to bring them on board.