The Rookery

A week ago, the Herons had a fantastic trip to Valley Grove.  We spent the morning in a rotation — learning about Prairie plants with Greg and Liz, practicing knife safety and knots with me, exploring the history of the cemetery with Tom and using a compass to survey the hilltop with Remy.  We were very busy!

In the afternoon, Tricia and Tom joined us for an adventure in the creek.  We started at the water fall — which is very impressive in the spring but more of a water trickle right now — and made our way about a mile along the creek bed.  Along the way we found fossils, jewel weed, stinging nettles, lots of logs to crawl over, a few frogs and a very nice fish.

At one point, there was a rumble of thunder and a quick check on the radar (ah, technology) showed that we were indeed going to get a small storm.  Luckily, we had just talked about outdoor storm safety!  We considered our options.  The hill top had big trees and the churches (which would be the safest place) were locked — not so good.  We concluded that we were in a pretty safe place – a grove of same size, smallish trees!  We would get out of the creek bed if the lightning got close or if there were torrential rains.  We then danced the chicken dance in a swimming hole, laughed a lot and continued on our way.  When the rain came (briefly, and without a lot of lightning) no one was nervous because they all knew we had a plan and were in a safe place.  Knowing what to expect and what to do can help kids feel more comfortable.  Developmentally, fourth and fifth graders start to get a lot more curious about the why of your decisions.  I have found that when I share my own decision making process, they are much more likely to accept the decision and they feel very grown up knowing the "real" reason something happened.  Of course, in a few short years, they are going to be making a lot more decisions without us — learning how now can help ease that transition.

After Valley Grove, we returned to a delicious pot luck supper — it's always a treat to share folks' favorites and sang some songs around the campfire.  The Skittle game was raucous fun – thanks to Tom for covering up the security lights to allow for extra sneakiness!  Then we settled in to sleep quickly…it had been a long day.  BUT IT WASN'T OVER YET!  As the winds picked up during the night, our amazing, giant, instant set up tents became instant collapse down tents!  The intrepid campers simply shrugged, gathered their sleeping bags and headed in to the gym for the rest of the night.  As I settled myself down in the gym with them, I couldn't believe that there had been no drama — the Herons take things in stride.

It was such a great kick off for our class:  a mix of carefully planned learning and unexpected opportunities.  Seeing the Herons play and laugh and encourage and learn made us so excited for the year ahead.  It's going to be great.