TVCS uses this dynamic approach to teaching and learning in which students explore real-world questions and challenges, while simultaneously developing cross curricular and interpersonal skills. The teacher acts as a facilitator, working with students to pose worthwhile questions, structure meaningful tasks, provide new and engaging resources, and encourage the use of appropriate social skills. While allowing for some degree of student voice and choice, rigorous projects are carefully planned, managed, and assessed to help students learn key academic content, practice 21st century skills (such as collaboration, communication, and critical thinking), and create high-quality, authentic products and presentations. Because project-based learning is filled with active and engaged learning, it inspires students to obtain a deeper knowledge of the subjects they are studying. Research also indicates that students are more likely to retain the knowledge gained through this approach far more readily than through traditional textbook-centered learning.

We are in the process of transitioning into our next project! During this exciting time of wondering, questions, observation, and experimentation, we will begin to form new project ideas, goals, and an ultimate driving question. There have been many, many questions about water in its various forms the past few weeks, and we will begin to explore these avenues. Stay tuned for more project updates!

Today we spent our last day in the woods as a class, and it was incredibly special! We were accompanied by our reading buddies, The Toros, who have been studying wilderness survival skills. We met up with our buddies and loaded the bus to Sweet Creek. We were so excited to sit with our buddies on the bus! The first thing we did when we arrived at Sweet Creek was talk about where we were, and why it is important to know where you are when you spend time in nature. The Mountain Lions all knew we were at Sweet Creek, and some even remembered that it was the location TVCS used to be, another valuable piece of information. Then, with the help of our buddies, we talked about how we can tell which way is north, south, east, and west. We learned that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and as long as we’re in Teton Valley, the Teton Mountain Range is to our east and it runs north to south. We even got to create our own valley compass rose, complete with illustrations.

After we learned how to tell apart the four cardinal directions, we broke into three groups to begin work on our shelter building. Some of us remembered that The Toros were expert shelter builders from their EXTRAVAGANZA skit, but we were so excited to learn from them and build real shelters of our own! We each went to a private location on the forested hillside and began collecting a variety of logs. At first we were only collection really, really, really big sticks and logs! Then, our Toros friends told us about what different sizes we need and why. We needed three larger logs to be our base leaning up again a group of trees, a downed log, or a boulder. These would be the structural integrity of our shelter, so they had to be large and sturdy with no chance of falling down. Then we would need to collect skinnier, smaller logs to go horizontally across our base and to fill in space vertically on our shelter. Lastly, we would need some conifer branches to help keep the harsh elements at bay: sun, rain, hail, snow, etc. We searched high and low (it was a good thing we’re small and our reading buddies are tall… we got the low and downed branches and they got the ones up high) for all of the materials we needed to build with. The building process was innately collaborative and The Toros did a wonderful job listening to The Mountain Lions’ ideas and thoughts, and worked with them to incorporate their ideas.

After all of that hard work, we took a nice, shady break for lunch. This allowed us time to watch the butterflies, listen to the stream, and chat with our reading buddies. After this relaxing time, we learned a one last life skill: How to Poop in the Woods. This is something we’d talked about as a class a few times, but there were still some unanswered questions and a lot of curiosity. One thing The Toros were sure to instill in us was thoughts of preparedness. The easiest way to go to the bathroom in the woods is to be prepared with a trowel, toilet paper, plastic bag, and hand sanitizer. Skylar, Quincy, and Orion gave us the run-down on how to dig a cat hole, where to put our toilet paper when we’re finished using it, and how to clean our hands afterwards. The thought behind discussing this was that there had been some uneasiness among the Mountain Lions that had not yet pooped in the woods without a Mom or Dad around. By discussing this with everyone, we could all be on the same page, and be a bit more comfortable with something we’re all going to do at some time or another… so why not learn now! Wilderness Life Skills 101 with The Toros.

Thank you Toros for a wonderful year of baking, reading exploring, building, painting, and laughs!

During this week's project time, we witnessed architects and mathematicians come to life in the block area. Balancing structures were tested. Elaborate castles were built. The Mountain Lions theorized and experimented with concepts in balance, weight, and symmetry. Problem-solving and collaboration were needed in order to be successful. "We did teamwork on this," Emmett said when he was helping construct the castle. When Jessie's dragon came to knock down the castle (just like in the story "George and the Dragon" that we have been reading in the library), Owen explained that he was going to build a cave next to the castle to live. The block area continues to be a place where we can study beginning lessons in geometry as well as use our problem-solving skills and large-motor muscles.

Waxed embroidery string, a variety of colored wire, a selection of holed additions, and plastic grides were added to the studio this week to expand on the children's interest in sewing and knitting. The Mountain Lions continued to strenghten their fine-motor muscles and eye-hand coordination when placing each end of wire or string through a small hole in their grid.

With the nice weather this week, we also strolled around campus to collect some new natural materials for our studio. During the drying process, lilacs made the perfect shape for hearts. Feathers inspired us to make bird wings and nests. We looked through our bird field guide as a resource for us to learn more about birds and their wings. We can look forward to more natural materials as we continue to bring nature inside for further discovery and bridge the "Days in Nature" we have been having.

On a beautiful Friday, the Mountain Lions ventured back out to Sweet Creek for some sun and exploration. We began the morning noticing all of the differences that can occur in a place over only two weeks: there is still snow on the mountains, but the patches of snow that were on the hillsides at Sweet Creek have vanished; the hills are now crawling with insects and bugs of all types; there are insects living in the water; the trees all have leaves, vibrant bright green ones everywhere; the water is running in the stream bed, almost flooding in areas; birds! There are so many of them, and they’re all singing their songs; and the animals are out exploring just like the Mountain Lions of TVCS.

After the Mountain Lions made their way over a bridge and through a fence to get to our hillside, they found areas they had explored weeks ago, where they had left portions of shelters and natural art. Finding and revisiting these areas was so exciting! Some Mountain Lions found some new areas for exploration: “houses” and shelters already existing in the trees provided for some chatter, planning, and fun.

Then, the Mountain Lions bushwhacked their way down to where their dam project had occurred two weeks ago. The Mountain Lions stopped at a few clearings, seeing if that was indeed where their dam project had been. Some students mentioned there was a rock pile where we built the dam, so that is something we have to look for. We found it, using the rock pile as a guide! We saw our dam, and it was actually working! The water was pooling above where the Mountain Lions had muscled the sticks and logs two weeks ago, and the stream had slowed significantly in that area. Feeling accomplished, we headed back to the shade for lunch.

In the safety of the shade, the Mountain Lions chatted and feasted, and then slowly switched gears to journal writing and book reading. Feeling relaxed and zapped by the heat from the sun, we read aloud from our current chapter book, Little House on the Prairie, and some Mountain Lions even caught a shady nature snooze. What a great way to spend the day!

There was a lot going on in the studio this week as well! After a few students in the Grey Wolves class had showed the Mountain Lions how to finger knit, another mini-project began manifesting itself in our classroom! The interest in knitting, sewing, weaving, and using clay in the classroom is a strong and evident one. Working on all of these projects will push creative boundaries, especially when/if they become combined, and will surely increase hand-eye coordination, fine and gross motor skills, and communication skills. The communication skills will come in when one student masters a skill and then is asked by another to teach it, thus the glory of having our multi-aged classroom! The projects are already becoming more intricate and creative… students are mixing colors when finger knitting and including beads and other none-cloth material in their sewing and weaving. 

We have moved from watercolors to clay this week! We were first introduced to clay through our process of making and coloring our own play dough. Sculpting and manipulating play dough is great scaffolding for working with clay, which tends to be thicker and harder to use. Working with clay will challenge the Mountain Lions to develop fine and gross motor muscles, and increase hand eye coordination. We began working on these skills and developing these muscles this week when we introduced the idea of “wedging” clay, similar to kneading bread. When we wedge clay, we are forced to use the muscles in our arms, shoulders, and backs to make the clay softer and more malleable. Wedging the clay is an important part of the process, making it easier to use in all forms of clay making and sculpture. At the beginning of the week we just used clay on the table, and towards the end of the week, we were using clay-specific tools such as small rolling pins, needle tools, and wooden slabs. Continuing to use natural materials in our clay projects will be important, as these tools are what potters and sculptures use in their art. We’ll continue to add more tools as we become stronger and more creative with our various kinds of clay in the studio! Stay tuned to see where we go with this mini-project!

Wrapping up our fascination with water, we got messy this week! Monday began as the Mountain Lions checked out the oobleck in the sensory table. At first, there was just corn starch in the table, and many Mountain Lions thought it was too powdery, and too messy, it was just getting all over the room! When they asked for some water, they found that the water and the corn starch combined to make an interesting texture! When the oobleck was just sitting in the table, it appeared to be a liquid, but when we picked it up with our hands, it turned into a solid! After many minutes of playing in the oobleck, the white color just wasn’t doing it for some Mountain Lions, and they asked for some water colors to dye it. Suddenly we had red oobleck in our sensory table for the rest of the week!

Then we made flubber! Using clear glue, liquid starch, and glitter, we made transparent flubber. The process of making the flubber was sticky but fun. The glue and liquid starch combine to make a wild rubber-like goo, perfect for using on our light table for various experiments.  There were lots of laughs and smiles as we experienced this crazy texture for the first time! On Thursday, the Mountain Lions used the flubber with thin, transparent colored blocks on the light table. They used the flubber to hold shapes together that created a variety of colors. They realized that even though they didn’t have any purple blocks, they could make purple blocks by mixing red and blue, and then hold the blocks together using the flubber. And bonus, as one student observed, because the flubber has glitter in it, the purple sparkled!

On Friday we proved to Mother Nature that we can still have fun, even when it is wet and cold! The Mountain Lions headed back out to Sweet Creek to explore and have some fun in the woods. We noticed some spectacular changes at Sweet Creek this week! The most incredible and drastic change we recognized was that where there used to be just rocks and dirt, there is now a rushing stream! We followed the stream far up into the woods to find the source, the place where a stream or river begins. On our journey upstream, we saw lots of tiny waterfalls that had been made from fallen trees and large rocks. We also found more bones, from a deer the Mountain Lions had guessed, and some flowering plants! We saw wildflowers in bloom, and a Mountain Lion favorite: a tiny green plant that looked like a miniature palm tree. Additionally, ALL of the trees have buds, and some trees even have leaves busting out of their buds. It may have still felt a little like winter, but the signs are all pointing to spring!

Once we found the source of the stream, a pond with a rope swing and many flat places to build forts, we headed back downstream. We worked together as a class to try and build a dam so we could cross the new raging stream to get to the more forested area of where we’ve been spending our days in Nature. We found a place where the water was a bit slower running, and collected many large logs. One (very heavy!) log was found, and carried by all of the Mountain Lions to try and act as the main damming component (August and Caitie picked up the log at one point and couldn’t believe how heavy it was, and that the teamwork the Mountain Lions used truly made things lighter!). Out of time for the cold and rainy day in the woods, we left our collection of logs near the stream and we will return to complete our task in two weeks. We will spend some time in the classroom designing on paper and then constructing dams and bridges out of Lincoln Logs and blocks, to get a feel for what we want to complete in the field. We’ll keep you posted on our building project!

Our mornings in nature have spurred quite the conversation both in the field, and in the classroom. There is a lot of talk about scat! Scat is the scientific way to say “poop” when referring to animal droppings. We have been using a scat identification card to tell our mule deer scat from the moose scat to the goose droppings. We made a few collections during our first day in nature at Woods Creek, but the last two trips to Sweet Creek, our new nature spot, has proved to be fruitful in the scat department! The wooded hillsides are littered with scat of various sizes, shapes, and colors that are prime for collection! Our science center is filling quickly with the varieties of scat we have identified. This week, we worked on identifying our scat, and then writing our own label for each collection.

“Animal poo. Scat! This kind is very short. It looks soft and squishy. It looks kind of like bunny scat. It is round and stick shaped.” –Marleigh

“The coyote scat smells bad! We need to put a lid on it. I think it smells bad because coyotes eat meat. The moose scat doesn’t smell because they eat flowers and grass. Look, you can see it when you open it. I don’t want to open the coyote scat, that will be so, so gross!” –Nico

“I don’t know if we should be touching it. Can I have those grabbers?” –Jessie

“Wow! Look at all of this poop! In our classroom!” –Gray

“Oh man, how can we tell them apart?” –Woods

“We have to use the paper key to see which poop matches the one we look at.” –Ava

“Yeah look, this one looks like that one.” –Brooks H. (Dumps out scat, and points to mule deer scat on chart).

We returned this week to Sweet Creek. It is amazing how there is already less snow, and more buds, among other signs of spring. We were grateful to have a warm, sunny morning to explore the woods and creek bed. Upon arrival, we saw three deer scurrying up the hillside, undoubtedly shielding themselves from the roar of the Mountain Lions! We built forts and collected scat, made our own mud kitchen in the woods, found bones, looked through magnifying glasses at tiny flowers and through binoculars at seemingly small birds, and found many, many tracks! We talked about camouflage, and why animals need it and how they use it. Then, we played our own game of camouflage, which challenged students to cover themselves in leaves, lay in a dried up stream bed, blend themselves with boulders, and branches, and trees, even when they were wearing brightly colored clothes.  To end the trip, we each found our own grassy spot in the sun to lay down and reflect on how the area we’ve been exploring during our morning in nature was different than school.

How is Sweet Creek different than school?

“A barn and bees and all these plants- that’s how it’s different.” –Nico

“There’s a whole lot of mooses and a lot of trees.” –Gray

“When I was hiding, I saw a little tiny black beetle.” –Emmett

“There’s trees high up on the hill and we don’t have hills like that. We just have one tiny hill.” –Owen

“The flowers are different. There aren’t any flowers at school.” –Elli

“It’s so different here because there’s a fence and barn, and because there is snow and green grass.” –Jessie

“I heard a bird, I heard a bald eagle.” –Willa

“I heard a plane.” –Marleigh

“There is a small place for us to play at school, and here there is lots more scat.” –Dylan

“I like how we can see the big mountains here. And lots of baby voles and really lots of bones here, too. And I like the rock pile to play in.” –Carly

“I like hiding behind the trees.” –Ava

“I think there used to be a river here. And beavers lived nearby. See that? There are teeth marks.” –Marleigh

And from last week, What did you enjoy about the day in the woods?

"I saw a big rock pile with two white things in it." -Dylan

"I saw a slingshot!" -Owen

"I saw two yellow eyes in the rock pile." -Willa

"I broke the slingshot, I stretched it back too far." -Murphy

"I also smelled horse poop." -Murphy

"I saw lots of poop." -Lily

"We collected a lot poop." -Carly

"We made a fort. We used logs." -Henry

"We used a big log and carried them. We'll need lots of friends to help us finish the fort." -Bennett

"I want to collect the deer bones.We could build a project with them." -Brooks L.

"We could split the bones open to see what's inside." -Bennett

In addition to teaching the Mustangs about watercolors, we had a great time creating pieces specifically for the Art Show at the Driggs Community Center. It challenged us to really think about which mediums we wanted to use, in which order, and how we wanted to present and title our final product. The Mountain Lion watercolor pieces are filled with vibrant colors of rainbows, landscapes, and are a great representation of the watercolor process we’ve been working so hard on every day in the studio. Please check out the Art Show, with student work from all of the classes at TVCS, beginning this evening at 5:00pm in Driggs!