Today started out warmer than most but was still a bit chilly. Before too long, the sun came out and it warmed right up! I got my students and it was a bigger group than usual. I was also teaching by myself for the first time. I had a very rambunctious group of students who were eager to explore. There were ups and downs to this. On one hand, the students were so excited to be outside and it was great to see their enthusiasm about nature. I love seeing kids eager to learn. Nature is so incredible and I love that I am able to share that joy with kids to ignite their curiosity. The down side was just that it was hard to teach such a large group by myself. I felt like the students were physically spread out because of students walking at different paces. This made it hard to teach to all the students all at once and I felt myself repeating much of what I said.
While on our hike today, we found many things including, a toad! When we arrived at Onion Bottom, we found many turtles sunbathing on the logs. One was huge! We played some games along the way and were sure to make good use of our senses. When we got back, I learned that one of the other groups found a 6 foot long Black Rat Snake as they were finishing their hike. There was a dad in the group who was extremely knowledgeable about everything in nature and he decided to catch the snake so the kids could see it! He showed the rest of the group leaders as the students were eating lunch and then I asked him if he could hang on to the snake for a while and join us for our snake show with the kids. He was very excited and agreed to help! After talking to the dad, David, I find out that he attended Goshen College and was an Elementary Education major just like us. We decided to co-teach the students about the snakes. I held the baby rat snake, Obsie, David held the 6 foot long rat snake, and Ryan and Aspen took turns helping out with Don, our Northern Water Snake.
The kids loved learning about the snakes we had and loved touching them too! I was pretty excited we had the wild rat snake and David as a part of our learning time. I learned so much from David and I will now be able to better teach the students about snakes when we have the next group come through. Having David catch the snake was a great demonstration to show to students that they did not have to be scared of the snakes.
On our walk back to Reith Village, I looked into the swampy area and found a Northern Water Snake! I decided not to try to pick it up, but it was really exciting to find one in the wild!
I decided to sit outside and do homework for a while and I found this House Finch (maybe) singing loudly!
The more I am outside this May Term, the more I learn and fall in love with it. I love everything about being outdoors and I love learning as much as I can while I am here. This is definitely my favorite May Term so far.
We ended the night with a fun birthday party for Ryan Rockin' Robin. There was cheesecake, rice crispies, pop, and friends...a great way to end the night!
Celebrating nature, celebrating people!
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