Nature Hike

I had eight year olds for the two hour hike.  I was prepared to do a lot more activities than we had time for so I could give them lots of choices along the way.  I tried to pay attention to varying stopping and looking and moving along so that we'd end up at the vernal pond at our correct time.  It worked pretty well.  I included an art activity that really held their attention for even longer than I thought it would.  We used various flower petals and leaves to make our own paint by rubbing them onto water color paper.  The students were really excited when a white flower made a yellow mark. Violets and dandelions work really well for this activity.  I also did the string and the ant activity where the kids get down on the ground and follow a piece of yarn with a magnifying glass.  This went over well also.  When we got to the log rolling I had stuffed my bag with one of the laminated sheets i had made of things you find under a log.  I also had printed it out and cut out individual invertebrates for the kids to each have one to find.  I told them they would be collecting information like scientists and they would take turns three at a time just counting how many of each critter was there.  This went over so much better than just having them all crowd over the same log fighting over who gets to hold a worm.  It was a very good day.  What I did to facilitate learning was to give them choices, show them how to explore things up close and use their observation skills.  What I would like to have done better is to involve the adults more than I did.  I realized I never got to know the teachers names, although I was proud of the fact that I did learn all of the kids names.