I Love to Write Day!

Tuesday, November 15th was national I Love to Write Day!  My students and I took some time out on the trail to listen, observe, smell and touch.  We tried to be very quiet and very still.  Good writers take time to be still and to observe.  We had our journals along, and we took notes as we took time to observe.  When we came back to the classroom we looked over our notes, circle some of our favorite ideas and put them together into poems.  I shared my notes and the making of my poem (previous post) with the students.  Some of their poems are written below. 

Outside

by Genevieve

I see a chipmunk in the bushes

the bushes have no leaves

when you breathe you see your breath

the moon is beautiful

in the beautiful blue sky

dew drops on leaves

the leaves are on the ground

this is outside

Nature

By Sydnee

Big tall trees

Berries on bushes

Birds chirping

Mud on the ground

It's cold

sun is bright

Liberty Hyde Bailey Trail

A Fall Morning

By Phillip

Crunching leaves

Foggy and misty

Cold bird cries

Dry leaves drifting down

A bare tree

A still tree

Kids crunching leaves

The brown dry leaves

The Trail

By Makaelee

Life all around me

I see my breath

in the cold crisp air

Moss in the crevices and cracks

Healthy but yet groggy

Quiet but a mystery to humankind

Dew Drops

By Zander

Wet and slippery beneath my feet

It makes the leaves look shiny

It makes the air moist

I Love to Write Day continued when two guest writers from South Haven (middle school student, Iza and her grandma Elaine Stephens) came and read some of their writing to us.  Elaine is writing a book for children about the life of Liberty Hyde Bailey.  We had a wonderful I Love to Write Day!  This Monday, my son John will be town and he will be sharing some of his poetry with us and we will share some of our poetry with him!  I Love to Write Day continues . . .  

Trees

"Of every tree, whether pear tree or elm or sassafras, the seasons make a harbinger.  I knew two oak trees intimately for some years, seeing them practically every day.  I knew their blooming in relation to each other and the shedding of their leaves.  Their autumn colors were peculiar shades and every year of the same quality each of itself. . ."  --Liberty Hyde Bailey

Liberty Hyde Bailey often wrote about his love of trees.  Our path meanders through a wooded area with a diversity of beautiful trees.  I think Liberty would enjoy our path through the woods.  We've added more trees in our opened area, thanks to Ann and Ralph's generous donation of several trees!  Last Saturday, we planted those trees and look forward to watching them grow.  Thanks Ann and Ralph!  

"I often wonder what must have been the loss of the child that had no fruit-tree to shelter it.  There are no memories like the days under an old apple tree.  Every bird of the field comes to it sooner or later.  Perhaps a humming-bird once built on the top of a limb, and the marks of the old nest are still there.  Strange insects are in its knots and wrinkles.  The shades are very deep and cool under it.  The sweet smells of spring are sweetest there.  And the mystery of the fruit that comes out of a blossom is beyond all reckoning, the magic growing week by week until the green young balls show themselves gladly among the leaves.  And who has not watched for the first red that comes on the side that hangs to the sun, and waited for the first fruit that was soft enough to yield to the thumb!"  --Liberty Hyde Bailey

If you would like to be a part of this project, join us on Wednesday, November 16th, 7:00 p.m. for a meeting at the Liberty Hyde Bailey Museum.  I will update you on all our progress and we can dream about more ways to bring the spirit and heart of Liberty Hyde Bailey to life here at North Shore Elementary! 

What is Nature Study?

"Nature-study, as a process, is seeing the things that one looks at, and the drawing of proper conclusions from what one sees.  Its purpose is to educate the child in terms of his environment, to the end that his life may be fuller and richer.  Nature-study is not the study of a science, as of botany, entomology, geology, and the like.  That is, it takes the things at hand and endeavors to understand them, without reference primarily to the systematic order or relationships of the objects.  It is informal, as are the objects which one sees.  It is entirely divorced from mere definitions, or from formal explanations in books.  It is therefore supremely natural.  It trains the eye and the mind to see and to comprehend the common things of life; and the result is not directly the acquiring of science but the establishing of a living sympathy with everything that is . . .The proper objects of nature-study are the things that one oftenest meets.  Stones, flowers, twigs, birds, insects, are good and common subjects."  --Liberty Hyde Bailey, 1897 

Letting Go

Freed Frog

Free at Last!  My students and I let our found frogs and toads free today.  We took the terrarium to our little pond in the woods, tipped it on its side, and let our friends make their escape in peace as we headed back to class.  We hope that they find a great place to hibernate through the upcoming winter!  Maybe in the spring we will meet some of them again. 

While we were out on the trail and on our way back, we took some time to collect leaves.  We sorted them by shape in the classroom and graphed our leaf finds.  We even found the mode, median and mean.  We weren't sure from what tree every leaf came, but it was a fun way to practice graphing and looking at cool leaves in the process. 

Path Pond

Liberty Hyde Bailey sailing with his daughter Ethel

"The backgrounds are important.  The life of every one of us is relative.  We miss our destiny when we miss or forget our backgrounds.  We lose ourselves. . . The backgrounds are the great unoccupied spaces.  They are the large environments in which we live but which we do not make.  The backgrounds are the sky with its limitless reaches; the silences of the sea; the tundra in pallid arctic nights; the deserts with their prismatic colors; the shores that gird the planet; the vast mountains that are beyond reach; the winds, which are the universal voice in nature; the sacredness of night; the elemental simplicity of the open fields; and the solitude of the forest.  These are the facts and situations that stand at our backs, to which we adjust our civilization, and by which we measure ourselves. . . I hope that we may always say "The forest primeval."  I hope that some reaches of the sea may never be sailed, that some swamps may never be drained, that some mountain peaks may never be scaled, that some forests may never be harvested.  I hope that some knowledge may never be revealed." 
--Liberty Hyde Bailey (The Holy Earth, 1943)

Scouts Help Move Boulders

Fern Garden Progress!

Rock Pile at Ed and Dorothy Heinze's Farm

It takes concentration and energy to move mountain parts

At the Fern Garden

On Sunday, the Cub Scouts helped us create a rock border for our fern garden. Fourth and fifth grade boys, under the leadership of Pastor Jeff Dick and Mike Nelson, loaded a flatbed truck with rocks from the farm of Ed and Dorothy Heinze. Ed and Dorothy are rock collectors of sorts (many farmers are). Cool rocks are found naturally and farmers are often the ones that find them as they prepare the soil for planting! Ed and Dorothy were very generous to share some of their rock finds with us! A huge thank you to Ed and Dorothy!  The Cub Scouts, along with Representative Aric Nesbitt and other helpful parents, helped move the rocks from the farm to our fern garden. The ferns have died back, but next year they will find themselves surrounded by cool rocks and a mulched trail. Today, my students toured the trail and we found evidence of ferns and fern spores.  The rock border was awesome!

A big thank you to Carolyn for taking pictures!  Another big thank you to Cindy for videotaping the project!  And to all those who helped move rocks, thank you!!!!  The Liberty Hyde Bailey Interpretive Garden Path is alive and well!  We have lots of hopes and dreams and we know that together we can make our gardens grow!