Welcome back from vacation, everyone! It sounds as though everyone had a relaxing two weeks, with lots of Mountain Lions taking the time to swim and ski! Many students went to the beach, others stayed around the valley and enjoyed the springy weather we were grateful to have.

What was your favorite part of vacation?

“Going to a basketball game. The Jazz and the Grizzlies.” –Leo

“Going down a waterslide in Montana.” –Bennett

“Swimming in the salt water in Florida.” –Henry

“Seeing the dolphins and manatees!” –Hilary

“Going to a waterpark while we were in Gooseberry Mesa.” –Rowan

“Finding mochi marbles and petrified wood in the slot canyons.” –Lily

“Going to Alcatraz.” –Dylan

“Swimming with Olive and Lily in their grandparent’s pool in California.” –August

“Watching Star Wars at a movie theatre in a house in Wilson.” –Owen

“Swimming in the salt water and finding snails in the Bahamas.” –Carly

“Playing games with my brother, Rut.” –Brooks H.

“My favorite part of vacation was playing superhero stuff outside.” –Smith

“I got a new bike helmet, it’s camouflage. I got it at a spider bike store.” –Emmett

“Going to Disneyland! I loved seeing the princesses.” –Jessie

“Going to the museum. It was a zoo in Arizona. There were giraffes and peacocks and bears.” –Willa

“Going swimming in Sun Valley.” –Murphy

“The slide at the hot springs. There are a lot of stairs you have to climb and then you have to wait for a bell to ding and then you get to ride the slide!” –Laila

“Skiing at Vail!” -Nico

The temperatures are warming and the seasons are changing! The snow is melting from the play yard, and the water, snow, and mud are slowly but surely disappearing. The Mountain Lions and Grey Wolves have been busy at work starting new construction projects out in the play yard, creating more water-based projects ranging from oceans to wells. Here is a little glimpse into what we’ve been talking about as we work out in the play yard…

“All of this digging making this ocean is going to make us tired. How are real oceans made? Those people must be so tired.” –Gray

“An ocean is a big thing of water with lots of creatures, and it’s really, really deep.” –Dylan

“And there are fish and whales and orca whales!” –Laila

“And beautiful dolphins.” –Elli

“And there are so many sharks, guys.” –Woods

“Yeah sharks! Tiger sharks and bull sharks. But bull nose sharks live in rivers and lakes.” –Nico

“No, sharks don’t live in either. Sharks only live in the ocean.” –Elli

“This ocean might get big enough to get into our classroom. Oh no. I think making the ocean the size of the sandbox is going to take all night.” –Woods

“I know about some boats in the ocean. Like sailboats, but not many motor boats. They have to have such big motors to make it across the ocean. Too many big waves.” –Emmett

“A river is skinny. A lake is like a big pond.” –Nico

“An ocean is really big! If you were to sail in the ocean it would take 26 and 81 days.” –Nico

“Look at that alligator in there! I can see its head popping out.” –Jessie

“We’re making a waterfall. Look at that waterfall coming right down there.” –Jessie

“We’re building a well. That’s a really, really, deep hole where you get your water from. Some people in Victor get their water from a well. I don’t know how the water gets there. Rain? From the dirt?” –Nico

“I think it’s both. We can have wells because this is the United States of America! We can do anything!” –Smith

On Friday we spent the morning in nature! We went to Woods Creek Ranch, where we were able to muck around in a wetland area. We started the morning with snack and sunscreen and quickly moved to a long walk near a pond. On the way to the pond, we noticed many different kinds of scat! We’ve fielded some guesses as to what animals they might belong to (coyote, elk, moose), but we collected some samples and will do a more in depth study next week. Once we arrived at the pond, students were busy looking through binoculars at birds and the mountains, sketching landscapes and animals, looking at bird books, and collecting feathers and bugs. We also got to sit in a bird blind and watch a wigeon (a particular species of waterfowl that Carlos helped us identify) circle the pond and then land in the water. Carlos also helped us call some ducks with his duck calls. Everyone had the opportunity to try, although we sounded funny, it was a great time! We heard and saw many birds including sand hill cranes, Canada geese, and a bald eagle! Lastly, we took the time to sit quietly and listen to the birds and other sounds we could hear, and used our eyes to identify new things we had not yet seen:

“I saw something itty bitty floating in the water.” –Rowan

“I see the tall grass.” –Abigail

“I see birds flying.” –Carly

“I see the ducks and the birds.” -Dylan

“I saw something swimming in the water.” –Connor

“I see mountains.” –Lily

“I see a crane.” –Owen

“I saw geese.” –Willa

“The geese.” –Marleigh

“A goose, over there.” –Henry

“I see ducks.” –Leo

“Geese!” –Bennett

“A heard a cricket.” –Murphy

“Mountains all around us with snow on the tops.” –August

Our studio is still busy with watercolors! The scaffolding we’ve learned and have as a base to develop more techniques is paying off. We’re professional “dip, dab, paint!”-ers, and have shared this technique with members of the Grey Wolves and the Torros, our Friday reading buddies. In addition to just being able to water color with paintbrushes, we’re now proficient with cotton swabs as a painting and color mixing tool. Also this week, we combined these two techniques, and started talking about the use of negative space, which we can make on our very own paper, for our own project, with tape. If we put the tape on the paper in a design, and then use the watercolors to paint and let it dry, we can then peel the tape back from the paper and see blank spaces of paper! It is a very cool process that we have just begun. We’re anxious to share this new learning with other friends and students, and can’t wait to peel back more layers of this watercolor business.

“In every single bush, there are signs of spring!” -Smith

On Thursday we spent the morning in nature! We went to Woods Creek Ranch, where we were able to muck around in a wetland area. Before we were even out of the bus, we saw a moose! Gray spotted it from the bus, and we stopped so everyone could see the moose in the thicket of the willows from the safety of our vehicle. We then unloaded, hydrated, and took a long walk to the pond. Last week we realized we were much too loud and we scared away most of the birds. This week, we had some students step up and tell their classmates we had to try to be quieter so we could see the birds hunt, eat, and live.  On the way to the pond, we noticed many different kinds of scat! We’ve fielded some guesses as to what animals they might belong to (coyote, elk, moose, goose), but we collected some samples and will do a more in depth study next week. Once we arrived at the pond, students were busy looking through binoculars at birds and the mountains, sketching landscapes and animals, looking at bird books, and collecting feathers, spiders, and bugs. We also got to sit in a bird blind and watched a few geese and cranes taxi and take off, and come in and land in the water. We explored the banks of the pond and saw some algae and a few fish. We even had some students working on their cast and pretending to fly fish! To wrap things up, we had a few minutes to have some quiet time to ourselves and a chance to reflect. Then, while we sat comfortably in the sun and the thick grass next to the pond, we answered a question: “What do you see and hear that tell you spring is here?”

“I heard two new birds here. One had a cool song!” –Owen

“I saw my first blue gill in the pond.” –Nico

“The pond. There’s no snow.” –Ava

“The river is running.” –Brooks

“The trees over there have green.” –Elli

“I hear geese.” –Marleigh

“I found new feathers.” –Laila

“Geese, ducks, swimming birds.” –Dylan

“Signs of summer and… algae!” –Smith

“A saw a spider.” –Woods

“A MOOSE!” –Gray

“I heard a swan.” –Jessie

“Feathers, new birds.” –Carly

“So many geese.” –Emmett

Some other notable quotes from our field trip include:

“I’ve seen that stuff before, it’s algae!” –Smith

“It’s an island of dinosaurs.” –Jessie, looking through binoculars

“I saw some of the grass bending this way and that way.” –Ava

“I want to be quiet.” –Brooks

“The pond goes all around, like round and round and round and round.” –Owen

“I love our field trips because we get to use cool different tools and play outside in the sunshine!” –Smith

Our days in nature the past two weeks have inspired a new take on art recently. With a bit of inspiration from Andy Goldsworthy, a natural artist whose book A Collaboration With Nature showed up in our classroom this week, the Mountain Lions are now very interested in collecting new natural materials to use in our studio. The progression began this week when we started using sticks, leaves, and dried flower heads with our play dough to make forests, lumberjacks, mountains, and a variety of other landscapes. However, after investigating a bit more of Goldsworthy’s artwork, some of the Mountain Lions were driven to collect more materials so they could make projects strictly with natural goods. The ensuing projects have been very creative and a joy to watch being built. The more we read and look at pictures of natural art, the more inspired the Mountain Lions become. They are taking it upon themselves to collect new materials to bring into the classroom for projects, and our studio is quickly filling up! We’ve been using rocks of all sizes, feathers, leaves, sticks, grasses, pine cones, and even the alpaca fur we spun earlier this year! Stay tuned as we discover more ways to use art and nature together and as we explore other places in the valley and become more interested and curious in this newly developing project!

This week, in addition to using tape to create negative space in our artwork as we watercolor, we’ve also added the light table element. Especially when using watercolors on thinner paper, the light table can create a neat effect on our artwork. At first appearing as though all colors are very bright and vibrant on the light table, after a piece dries, we can really see how much the colors run across the page, change, dampen, and ultimately appear like a different piece than what we originally started with. Now knowing that different watercolor mediums blend and dry differently depending on what paper we’re using has changed the way we use the paints both in the studio and on the light table. One Mountain Lion this week wondered how we should watercolor on the shadow screen…

The chickens love our wheatgrass so much… will we like it as much as they do? On Wednesday this week, we started juicing! We had so much wheatgrass we thought we would juice it and try it for ourselves. August brought a juicer from home and we got busy cutting wheatgrass, and washing carrots and apples to mix with it. The first batch of juice was granny smith apple and wheatgrass. Before we tasted it, we looked at it, smelled it, and said cheers to each other. There were some skeptical looks, and even better reactions! Look out, parents! Some of your children might be asking for fresh juice with wheatgrass… or never drinking green juice again! Once our wheatgrass grows back, we'll be doing this flavorful experiment with more classes!

 “It’s yummy.” –Rowan

“I really liked the wheatgrass flavor.” –Leo

“It’s sour!” –Henry

“It was sour, but good!” –Lily

“I didn’t like it, I got grass stuck in my teeth.” –Owen

“It’s sour, but I like it.” –Laila

“I didn’t like it. It tasted grassy.” –Abigail

“I liked it because there was apple in there. I probably wouldn’t have liked it if it was just grass.” –Willa

“I liked it.” –Bennett

“I don’t want to try it. It’s green!” –Connor

“I liked it, it was yummy and tasty.” –Marleigh

“It tasted sweet to me, it was good.” –Murphy

“So good!” –Brooks L.

“No, I didn’t like it. It tasted like grass.” –Carly

Our natural artwork has continued this week, and it has been very exciting progression! We've collected items from the outdoors during our days in nature, we've found new uses for things that were already in our classroom, and we've tried some art experiments with the rain and snow outside in our play yard. This is turning into a very neat culmination of projects and events of this spring! Stay tuned to see how this progresses, because a student asked today, "can we do an Andy project with water?" We'll explore this thought next week!

Today we spent another morning in nature! We headed to Sweet Creek Ranch, the area that housed the Teton Valley Community School in its early years. We explored muddy hillsides, steep banks, river beds, various kinds of scat, a deer carcass, tracks that belonged to a raptor, and tracks belonging to a mule deer. We built forts in the woods, swung from low branches, and ran and jumped over drainages! The weather didn't hold us back, and everyone persevered through some cold rain and snow with smiles the entire time. The Mountain Lions were meant to be in nature!