Outdoor Exploration

Our Pre-K play yard is an Outdoor Learning Environment.  In this setting, children are free to explore, construct, create, and collaborate.  Teachers enhance the children's experiences in the Outdoor Learning Environment by promping inquiry and critical thinking through hands-on mini-projects.  These projects integrate environmental science concepts and Place-based education approaches.  These opportunities are designed to deepen the child's understanding of the major project at work, connect children to their place, and explore seasonal changes and topics.

Farm and Garden

Teton Valley Community formed a partnership with Full Circle Education in 2006 to implement a comprehensive Farm and Garden Program. All children attending Teton Valley Community School participate in planting the campus garden and greenhouse in the spring, composting and mixing soil, selecting, maintaining and harvesting crops, cooking garden meals, preserving food, and caring for the farm animals (chickens and alpacas). A Harvest Party luncheon is prepared by the students in the fall, and preserved garden produce is cooked into a “Love your Garden” soup for Valentine’s Day. Through this program, children gain first-hand experience in sustainable food production, healthy meal preparation, humane farm animal care and ecological land stewardship.

On Wednesday, we did some serious weeding! It looked as if our raspberry bushes were getting out grown and choked by the competing weeds. So we did some serious digging and pulling, and then tossed the chickens everything we grabbed. They loved the weeds to munch on, and we are thankful they eat them! We also completed planting our raised bed. The wildflowers we had put so much time and effort into growing in our classroom this spring finally found a home in our garden this week. We planted cosmos and bachelor buttons to accompany all of the greens, herbs, and spices that we’ve planted the past few weeks. The kale and the Red Russian Lettuce are really looking like salad these days, and the thyme, rosemary, sage, and lamb’s ear transplanted well and continue to thrive.

On Thursday we took a field trip to Full Circle Farm! After we got the rundown of our field trip goals and rules, we began touring the farm. We started by picking up some weeds and barley to feed the pigs and chickens. The pigs are still tiny, but they were napping in a pig pile in the shade! Afterwards, we headed to the chickens to feed them breakfast. There were so many of them, and they were so hungry. Some of the Mountain Lions were brave enough to hand feed the chickens, like Emmett, but one of the chickens continued to jump up on him thinking his necklace was a worm! At Full Circle, the chickens lay and roost in an old school bus, so we climbed aboard after giving them some food from our hands. Once our chores were finished, we took a walk near the tree line.

Emily heard that we had been taking a strong interest in nature the past few weeks and she inspired us to continue to search for signs of animals. We found vole holes, three different kinds of scat, three bird nests (two large ones of one bird species and a smaller one of a different species), deer tracks, fur, and feathers! And that was only along a 200 yard stretch of tree line and into the fields adjacent to Full Circle. We talked about why animals may be interested in spending time at the farm. Emily let us know that the chickens and pigs are enclosed in electric fences mostly so other wild animals don’t try to eat them. We also learned that even though parts of the garden have coverings on them, like the greens for example, animals can still get to them… the voles had taken a particular liking to the broccoli! We asked the voles to please stay away from the broccoli so the very nice farmers can have their veggies.

To round out our stay, we checked out the bees and the orchard. We stood very quietly next to the apple trees and we could hear and see many of the bees that hang out and make comb at the farm. We walked over to their hive home and watched them swarm and fly in and out! We left the orchard and admired all of the beautiful vegetables that were coming up in the beds and then made a pit stop at the tractor so we could pretend to drive for a little bit! Lastly, we sat by the stream to see what we could hear and to do some reflecting. We listened to new birds that are joining us for the summer, and felt the calm the trickling stream helped us realize. It was tempting to get wet because it was so warm, as well! As we left we checked in on an injured rooster and said good bye and a great, big thank you to Emily for all of her great lessons and hard work this year and thanked Erika and Ken for welcoming us at the farm. What a fantastic way to wrap up our Farm & Garden program for the year!

This week in Farm and Garden, we smelled, touched, looked at, and tasted a lot of the things we’ve put into our garden! Our raised bed is quickly turning into a wonderfully delicious and spectacularly smelly sensory garden! This week we planted rosemary, sage, lambs ear, mint, thyme, chives, and lavender. We smelled all of the plants we put into the bed, and tasted the chives and mint. There were mixed Mountain Lion reviews on the chives, some thought it was too much like onion, others thought it was too spicy, and some thought it was just right. Everyone enjoyed the sorrel Emily brought to help us understand what kind of plants could be sour, some said they thought they would like a salad completely of sorrel instead of spinach or mixed greens! The mint was, of course, a huge hit, and smelling the lavender seemed to be the main highlight for everyone.

With the weather getting warmer, and the days getting longer, the kale we planted last week is already poking up out of the ground! There are many tiny sprouts in the perimeter of our bed, and we can’t wait to see how much they grow even over this long weekend. We have a big responsibility, remembering to water our plants twice a day for the rest of the school year. We also have to water the raspberry plants, and they seem to always be thirsty! So thirsty! One Mountain Lion recognized that to water all of the raspberry plants, and everything in our bed, it takes at the minimum “7 whole kids!”

On Wednesday we had Farm & Garden with Emily and we got a tour of the new raised beds in our garden! We have an entire raised bed all to ourselves we took a look at all of the space we have for so many veggies and herbs. But something was missing in our bed… there were no worms! So we dug through the compost to find some. We found so many worms; we think our plants will be very happy. We also thought about our vermiculture bin and wondered if those worms would be happy in our bed. Then we got to planting! We planted a perimeter of Red Russian Kale around our bed, and soon we will plant some sensory-based plants, like rosemary and mint, for experiments. When we got back inside, we painted rocks a variety of fun and bright colors, which will be used as place markers in our garden.

On Thursday we found more worms and then really flexed our muscles to transplant some raspberry bushes. We had a conversation about what it means to transplant, and how we’ll have to keep an extra special eye on our raspberries to make sure they are happy with their new soil. We worked on digging large holes and giving the raspberries plenty of soil, compost, and good vibes! There was some question as to if planting the raspberry bushes close to the chickens would cause a problem: Would the chickens eat all of our raspberries? We took a closer inspection of the raspberry plants and realized they have very prickly stems, and probably only get pricklier as they grow larger. These stems and prickles will protect the plant from predators. We talked about how this sort of thing is called an adaptation, and what that means for our raspberries, and other plants in our high alpine desert ecosystem. We decided, that even though these prickles will make it difficult for us to pick the raspberries, these sorts of adaptations are crucial for these plants surviving in the Tetons.

We kicked this week off by celebrating Earth Day! Emily came in for Farm & Garden and we started things off by reading Earth Day, Birthday! by Maureen Wright. It is a story about a monkey who knows it is his birthday, but all of his jungle friends refuse to believe that it could be Earth Day and his birthday! Throughout the book, the jungle friends talk about the different ways they could celebrate Earth Day: recycle, use cloth bags, compost, reuse materials, and picking up garbage are just a few ways to help make the Earth a better place. As a Mountain Lion class, we realized we do a lot of those things every day or week already! We compost here at school, and many students do at home as well. Most of us use cloth shopping bags, we use recycled materials in our art studio, and we’ve been doing a lot of seed planting lately, as well! This book was a great reminder of how we’re citizens of the Earth and it is important to care for our land.

Then, with Emily, we talked about what Earth is and why it is important to celebrate Earth. Earth is a planet, one of eight in our solar system, and is the only planet with water. We started talking about special ways we could celebrate the Earth this week. We noticed that we still had some sunflowers hanging from our window, and we know from our planting experience that these seeds are viable and they grow quickly! Emily brought in tiny envelopes that we decorated in bright colors and then we filled each envelope with ten sunflower seeds to spread springy Earth Day joy to everyone at the Teton Valley Community School! Once we decorated and filled enough envelopes, we set out about campus to deliver one packet to every student and teacher in each class. This brought many smiles on Earth Day!

Once that task was finished, we worked a little harder to make our campus and school cleaner and prettier. We paired up and tromped about our muddy grounds collecting trash and bottles that the sun had unburied for us after a long winter with lots of snow. We found a few plastic bags worth of garbage, and along with Katie and Anna’s kindergarten class, The Black Bats, our campus is now a cleaner, more beautiful place. What can you do to make the Earth a cleaner, more beautiful ad happier place? Ask your child, they came up with some great ideas. Happy Earth Day!

In Farm and Garden this week, we were busy stepping into spring and did lots of planting! Emily noticed that the last time she was with us, and we all pretended to be plants, that many of us sprouted and grew into flowers.  So this week, we got to plant some flowers to bring into our classroom. Each student had the opportunity to plant bachelor buttons, bells of Ireland, cosmos, and nasturtium. Not only did we get the chance to practice our gardening skills, we also did quite a bit of writing! Each student practiced writing their name to show which plants were theirs, and some had the daunting task of writing out each type of flower so we would know which ones they are!

In addition to planting flowers, we’re also sprouting some mung beans, wheatgrass, and more peas! Our peas did so well before, and during, vacation, and they tasty so delicious, we knew we had to plant more. We’re keeping the mung beans in jars, and we have to be sure to rinse them every day. We first let them sit in water overnight on Tuesday, and by Thursday there were already little sprouts! We planted quite a bit of wheat grass in hopes we’ll get to try some, and we’ll feed a bunch to the chickens, as well.

Not only will these projects bring bright colors and life into our classroom, it is also helping us to teach how to care for things outside ourselves. We have a lot of jobs in our class right now! We have to rinse the mung beans, water the seedlings, water the plants that are already in our class, take the food scraps to the chickens, compost other food, and we’re helping the Mustangs with chicken care again, too! A lot of great real world jobs and learning happening with the Mountain Lions these days, what wonderful experiences!