What was tried in the classroom?
I extended my teaching to include our outdoor spaces and food forests. I use the food forests with our after school garden club, but I hadn’t incorporated it much into our teaching.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve spent more library time outside: listening, looking, touching plants and recording observations in our library journals. We’re using iPads to take pictures and using those pictures to connect to books and research projects.
Overall, we’re just spending more time outdoors; observing and reflecting.
How’d it go?
Overall I think it has been an incredible experience. Because I was doing this at the end of the school year, we had already established protocols for staying together, how to use our library notebooks, how to release and come back together, etc – we just took our norms outside.
As I plan lessons for the 2024-25 school year, I’m focusing on including more outdoor experiences and exposure to Indigenous ways of knowing into my curriculum all year long.
Student recording observations outside in Library Notebook
Student explores new growth on an apple tree
Students record observations in library notebooks
ClimeTime Training
Beyond Classroom Walls
Classroom
School: Maywood Hills Elementary
District: NorthshoreΒ School District
Teachers: Renee Huizenga
