Session 1, Day 1

It is sooooooooooooooo nice to be back in the courtyard this summer!  UR at Lincoln is off to a fabulous start, but we expected no less.  Urban Rangers has taught us that if you let children loose in an interesting environment, they will seek the learning experiences themselves.  Today confirmed that even more!

Here are some highlights:

Kudos on Challenge #1!

Another kudos for Challenge #1!

 Some Rangers shared stories of journals we made in the past together, and everyone got a new one today and created their first entry!  I'll post a pic tomorrow!

Setting up bug habitats was first order of business!

Insects we found today:  earwigs, roly polys, ants, bees, beetles,  spiders, snails, and big, juicy earthworms!

Pill bug in a pocket?  Now that's an Urban Ranger!

This earthworm showed off her math skills!  See the number?

One Ranger commented on the worm making the breast cancer ribbon!

In the art room we set to work on our t-shirts.
We are really excited about this year's design, which incorporates
two techniques we've used in the past: bleach and fabric paint.
Today was phase one: tape and bleach.  One Ranger ended up bleaching the clothes
she was wearing!  ooops!  Note for next year:  SMOCKS!

We took our bleached shirts home to dry and will begin phase two tomorrow: fabric paint!  Dress for a mess!

Challenge #2

Welcome online Rangers!!!

Hope you made/found/bought a nature journal last week and recorded some interesting stuff.  Please post a comment of anything you did to the latest post to share your work!

Challenge #2:

Use your nature journal for this assignment--or any old piece of paper--but not an electronic device!  Using our hands to write helps us develop our memory and processing of information in ways that typing/swiping does not.  So go old-fashioned for this challenge, please!  Cameras for pictures are OK.  ;)

To complete this challenge, you must:

1. Any time you are outside this week, record how many and what kinds of insects you observe.  You can draw or sketch them--remember to label what you see!  Or you can make a written list.

2.  Be sure to include the date, where you are, time of day, and weather conditions.  These are good habits to develop as an observer!

3.  Share something you observe or a question that comes up by commenting to this post on the blog.

Urban Rangers will be observing and exploring (hooray!!!) in the courtyard this week, so we will be posting our observations here too.  Follow along, explore, and have fun!

Nature Journals

Happy 4th of July!  Now it feels like summer, right?!

Challenge #1 was about nature journaling--getting one and starting to write entries.  We always begin with this because it is such a good habit and offers so many ways to record and document your learning over time--which is truly the ONLY way to assess understanding: in the process.

As an art teacher, Mr. G incorporates aspects of nature journaling, mostly through watching his beloved Decorah eagles and drawing exercises.  As an elementary teacher, I was able to take my students every week to a small, (very polluted!) cove behind the school. Nature journaling is where we begin to develop our observation skills, collect data we can use in other ways, learn to reflect, use math for a purpose, and sharpen our drawing and writing abilities.  Pretty academic stuff, I'd say!

So here are some samples of nature journals past:

This Strathmore 4x6 pad is my favorite for nature journaling.  I usually glue on my own cover as shown on the left.

sometimes my entries look like this..

sometimes I just write about what I observe...

and sometimes I press flowers or treasures I find, like this beautiful peacock feather, found on the ground at the Maine Wildlife Sanctuary--pictured also is a dried/pressed flower of Queen Anne's lace

This is a nature journaling assignment from one of my former 2nd grade students.  His dad transcribed his "nature questions" onto a sheet printed from the computer with a picture of a lizard the student was curious about.  A nature journal can be anything!

Sometimes nature journals are blank books we paint our own cover onto.

Sometimes they are several pages of blank paper folded and stapled or tied with string with a patterned cover.

These are two entries from my daughter in separate journals.
Can you tell which one she did as a 3 year old? as a 5 year old?

An entry from my son, age 7.  Translation: "I caught a bluegill [fish] in Maine."

Sometimes a nature journal is just some blank paper clipped to an old cereal box that
has been covered in construction paper.

A nature journal should be anything you feel comfortable collecting your observations in, and it should reflect you in someway.  The important thing about your nature journal will be what you record inside, so if you haven't started:  get going!  Summer in New England offers so much to observe, and after the winter we had, we should all be taking a little extra notice and appreciation for the warmth and sunshine we are enjoying now!  What better to look back on when we are buried in feet of snow next winter--our reflections on this glorious summer weather!

Stay cool and enjoy the sun!

**SPECIAL NOTE: Challenge #2 will be posted Monday, 7/6/15!  Please check back!

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!