Welcome to UR online 2015!

Hello Rangers!  

Every Monday morning we will have a new post with a challenge for you to complete during the week.  We will also participate in the challenge and will post what we do.  We would LOVE to hear from you too, so please post a comment (describing what YOU did--pictures would be great too!) to the latest post and we can all share our learning together online!

Challenge for the week of:

June 29th, 2015:

Every Urban Ranger experience begins with a nature journal!  All you need is some paper, a pencil, and a special spot where you can observe nature.

Nature Journals come in all shapes and sizes!  Pinterest is a great resource for finding tons of cool ideas, but a nature journal can be something as simple as some folded sheets of blank paper, or a notebook, or a clipboard with paper.

Don't worry about getting fancy.  

It's what you will add inside that matters.

To complete this challenge, you need to do three things:

1.  Find, buy, or make a nature journal.  This should be a special journal that you ONLY use for nature journaling.

2.  Start nature journaling this week!  Take some time every day, (maybe 5 or 10 minutes), grab a pencil and your journal, then go to a spot in your backyard, or porch, or even by a window.  

Be quiet and still.  

Concentrate on what you see, hear, smell, and feel.

3.  Spend another 5 or 10 minutes recording your observations in your journal.  You can use words and pictures.  Sketch something you saw and label the different parts.  Write a sentence or word list or poem about how you felt or something you noticed.  Your entry is yours to create as you like!

ALWAYS begin by writing the date, time, weather conditions, and the place you are observing.

Good luck and have fun with this challenge!  We will be posting what we are doing and checking for comments all week.  

We can't wait to see what you do!

YOU ARE INVITED.....

EVERYONE IS INVITED TO JOIN URBAN RANGERS 2015 ONLINE! 

Every Monday over the summer we will post a challenge for your child or family to participate in by creating or exploring or observing.  You can then post what you did by leaving a comment on our blog. 

There is no cost to join and no commitment—participate as much or as little as you like!  You can follow the blog by entering your email as indicated on the right side of the screen, or just check in on Monday mornings!

 Growing the Urban Rangers community is a dream come true for us, 

so please, join us for the ride!

Check back Monday morning (6/29/15) for our first challenge!

UR in a nutshell

This is not the post I thought I'd be writing for the start of Urban Rangers 2015, but we want to extend our deep appreciation to the parents and students of our 2015 groups from the bottom of our hearts.  You are amazing parents, and here are some highlights from our courtyard excursion yesterday with your equally amazing children!

Ant hill discovered by Marcella

In a matter of minutes, this group of Rangers discovered a raspberry bush in the courtyard that no one else in the past two years ever noticed!!  I think raspberries would have been a big theme to work with this summer!

Snails are the official insect of the Urban Rangers!  It was inspiring to observe the new Rangers scream in delight at finding snails, and to also see the returning Rangers rush to guide the rookies to all the snail hot spots and share snail info learned from previous summers.

Determining whether or not the shell was inhabited was step one in our snail discoveries.

Another new discovery was a clump of mushrooms growing in a damp corner of the courtyard--again, amazing to watch new Rangers discovering the secrets and beauty of the courtyard for the first time!

Several returning Rangers told tales about our past adventures--Brayden's bumble bee interaction from year one (and what we subsequently learned about bees from that experience), the discovery of mole holes underground, and here we see the group gathered around one of my personal favorites: the cement deer excavation! 

And of course, our beloved pill bugs aka wood lice aka potato bugs aka roly polies!

I am too emotional at the moment to fully gather my thoughts about the 2015 URs, but at the forefront of my mind is the community we all created together in the past two summers and in the 30minutes of this summer's program, and the comfort in knowing what a personal impact this program had on those who participated.  What we observed yesterday in the courtyard were students who were excited about learning science, creating art work, and working together, and evidence in their stories of past experiences that show what they gained from UR.

THAT is what learning looks like.

THANK YOU AGAIN!  Please check in soon for updates!  -K & M

Welcome to Urban Rangers 2015!

Here we are again!  

The snow has melted and the sun is shining in the courtyard!

(insert courtyard pic here)

We are meeting as a whole group (all three sessions together) next Tuesday to discuss plans for the summer.  Each Ranger will receive their first challenge at this meeting, which will bring you HERE, where a special message will be waiting.

We are so excited to begin another summer in the courtyard and art room together!  Here are some highlights from 2014:

  

See you soon!