Outdoor Whiteboard and more....

You may have noticed that I am very proud of our outdoor classroom space....As I have stated a million times, it is all due to our wonderful local Master Gardeners.  If any of you are considering taking this project on, I highly recommend you contact them through your local extension centers.  If you click on the link above, there is a data base telling you where they are located in your state.  Master Gardeners have to do community service as part of the program.  They are usually looking for volunteer hours and would love to help out.  My Master Gardener secured the grant through Kohl's to provide money for the materials, organized the whole building process, waters the garden all through the year and into the summer when we are gone and even started an after school Garden Club for the kids.  So check into this resource if you are seriously considering a garden at your school.

SherriA asked me how we put a whiteboard outside in our garden.  She was wondering if the weather would ruin it, how we mounted it and what we use it for. 

Well, like I said before...I have connections.  (ha ha)  I was blessed last year that a former student, Benjamin Crisler, needed a project for his Eagle Scout qualifications.  He decided to finish off our outdoor classroom.  We already had the "garage port" and some beat up old picnic tables.  He built us three more brand new picnic tables, put pebbles underneath the tables and and also built us the Whiteboard Board.

SherriA you are correct.  We couldn't figure out how to put it outside so that it would be safe from the elements. Benjamin came up with this idea.  It is portable.  He created a stand with giant clips on it (chained to the board so that none of our lovely neighbors will steal borrow them).  We stash the whiteboard inside the school in the hallway by the door way so we can bring it out when we need it.  I like this feature because you can use it on both sides.  If you are working in the shelter, it can face the picnic tables.  If you are working in the gardens, it can face the gardens.  I hope this helps you out...Get outdoors and enjoy it with your students!

Before....

After....

Come visit my new garden

Well, it's not really my new garden...but I did convince the Master Gardeners to build our school another garden bed by our Fourth and Fifth Grade classroom. 

Why? Well I got to thinking...we have a beautiful garden out by our K-1-2 wing. My class uses it all the time as I have shown in past blogs.  My students love it - we have four beds maintained by a wonderful Master Gardener (Susan Gingrich) and her two clubs - Garden Club and Jr. Master Gardeners. 

  Our art teacher has made a beautiful mural made with recycled bottle tops and a former student and Eagle Scout made us picnic tables and an outdoor whiteboard for instruction. Yes, I know...we are spoiled.   However, I kept thinking .... we need something more.

About that time, I was told we had $300 to spend as part of a grant that was awarded to us for instructional purposes for animal/plant studies. 

I thought...why not put one out by the other side of the school for our kids to work on during recess time?  You know there are plenty of students who don't really run and play during recess. Last year we had a big group of kids who liked to wander in the bushes, pick the flowers (aka weeds) and generally collect bits of nature.  Why not give them a space to weed, water and enjoy nature during recess?

Thus..our bed was born. It is a work in progress...right now we have planted three plants and plenty of seeds.  Our master gardener is going to bring a few more plants next week. 

Bottle Cap Murals

I have to take some time to share with you the latest project at my school.  My art teacher, the fabulous Mrs. Mamon, had students collect and sort bottle caps over the past year as part of a school wide recycling campaign.  I never knew how many colors of bottle caps there were!

Then this fall as part of an enrichment day, she had students in 2nd and 3rd grade help glue on the bottle caps in a bottle cap mural (which were later screwed in with a drill by various volunteers).  

The effect was much like an impressionist painting.  From close up, all you can see are dots....but step back a little further.... and you see a flower....

a caterpillar...a leaf...a bee...a butterfly...

and finally a garden...

How do you recognize parts of an inch?

Here in Virginia our studnets need to know how to measure a picture to the nearest inch, 1/2 inch, 1/4 inch and 1/8 of an inch.  How do we teach it? Let me show you....

First we started by passing out inch rulers and drawing three inch lines. 
Then we divided one line in half, one line in fourths and one line in eigths.  Then we colored each section to show size. It looked like this in their science notebooks.

Part two - we went outside to our school garden in search of objects that were less than one inch.  The students had so much fun measuring objects in nature and recording them in their science notebooks.

They found a ladybug that was about 1/8 of an inch.

Here is a sample of the notebook entries from one child....

I don't know if you can read it, but it says A growing white flower (1/8 of an inch).

A pebble (1/4) of an inch.

The inside of a yellow flower (the stigma) 1/4 of an inch

Ant = Half an inch