Prep Scouts: Day 3

The last day of Prep Scouts was a field trip to celebrate Earth Day.  We went to one of the most lovely places in our area, Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve.  Bowman’s Hill is an outdoor museum of Mother's Nature's wild-growing plants and it is a magical, lovely place.   The flowers and plants that can be seen at this time of year are called ephemerals because they can only bloom when there is warmth in the air and the plants can soak in the sunlight because the trees that grow above them have not yet leafed and blocked out the sunlight.  There were May apples, one of my favorite plants.

There were trilliums getting ready to bloom.

We saw bloodroot flowers and ferns just emerging alongside the bluebells and poppies.

There were fields and fields of bluebells alongside yellow celandine poppy flowers, so lovely they took your breath away.

Wildflowers in early Spring is guaranteed to charm even the most jaded of observers.  Of course, middle schoolers are not the least bit jaded and they enjoyed the beauty that we saw.  

We stopped in the gazebo to make a group photo.  Most of them held still long enough to have their picture made.

Wildflowers in April....that’s happy!

Prep Scouts: Day 2

Prep Scouts Day 2 found us busily at work with our friendship bracelets.  Most of the scouts had hardly finished their first before they were planning for their next bracelet, so that’s been fun.  Day 2’s second craft was the creation of seed starters made using shredded paper and flower seeds.  Each scout had the chance to make one.  

Our clever school assistant, Mrs. O, was the person who gave me the idea, and this one was a winner. Next week, we'll wrap up our creations so the students can bring them home and give a hand-made gift to their mom for Mother's Day.

Our cooking project was the creation of homemade salsa and guacamole, two activities the scouts enjoyed very much because both involved eating, a very popular activity for middle schoolers.

Today we head to a wildflower preserve just over the border in Pennsylvania.  It’s a beautiful place and with any luck the rain will hold off until we board the bus for the ride home.

Prep Scouts: Day 1

We started Wednesday's Prep Scout fun with the creation of old-fashioned friendship bracelets, which the students weaved for themselves and one another.  The bracelets are fun and pretty quick gratification for our efforts.  Once we started them, the students sat outside and worked on the bracelets while we prepared our other crafts and activities in smaller groups.

Wednesday’s second craft was the creation of marbleized paper, a craft I learned about on Cup of Jo.  We followed the procedures as instructed and then set out our cards to dry.  They turned out very well and the students are excited to make more of them today.

Later on this week, we’ll write hand-written notes on our cards.  We’ll put those in the mail before Adventure Week ends on Friday.  We wrapped up our day by hand churning cream to make butter, which we slathered on saltine crackers and enjoyed very much.  Today will feature a new set of Prep Scout adventures.  That’s happy!

Adventure Week Starts Now!

Each year, the Middle School presses pause on our regular classes and we switch to immersion classes organized around a variety of topics.  We include the 5th graders who will join us for next year’s school year and teachers chooses classes and topics that they are excited to explore with a dozen or so students.  We invite teachers from both the Lower and Upper School to organize a class and then we turn everyone loose to learn something new and have fun while doing it.  From the exploration of baseball statistics to fishing along the banks of the river behind our school, the students get a chance to immerse themselves in something that excites them.  This year, there are more than a dozen Adventure Week courses on offer.

My Adventure Week course is a shared project with a fellow teacher and we call it Prep Scouts.  It’s all the fun of scout-style activities without the unattractive uniforms, tiresome cookie sales, or inexplicable discrimination.  Instead, we’re making crafts, trying our hand at some simple food prep activities, and enjoying the outdoors.  We’ll wrap up on Friday with a field trip to a local plant sanctuary, Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve.

The supplies are organized and we’re ready to go.  For the next few days, I’ll chronicle the day’s Prep Scout activities.  Let the adventure begin!