Last Days

The Lord has been so faithful this school year. It’s been one full of change and adaptation, and a lot of growth! I’m so proud of my students and all that we have accomplished this year!!! I wanted to share just a few of the sweet moments our class enjoyed in the last days of school.

The weather was so beautiful, so we spent some time in the garden (that we are so blessed to have, thanks to Mrs. Ramsey and the garden club) just drawing and writing about the amazing plant life there.

So many of the flowers were in full bloom and perfect for sketching detail!

 Super focused!

He was careful to find just the right color to represent his plant of choice.

I had planned for us to spend some time outside in the park/playground area to draw and talk about our favorite memories from the school year using sidewalk chalk. Unfortunately, rainy weather called for some improvisation so I used black craft paper and we created our own “sidewalk” indoors. The students loved this and I enjoyed hearing about their favorite memories. So many of them I never would have guessed...

Like this fella here on the left... yep, that’s a multiplication sign you see. His favorite memory was learning how to multiply =)

After the “sidewalk” was finished we hung it up and students shared their pictures and stories.  

This is one group of lively and imaginative students and I can’t wait to see my first-graders now second-graders all grown up come August! 

Field Trip to Botanic Gardens

I’m so excited and proud to share a snippet of our learning with you from our field trip to Memphis Botanic Garden. It was such a beautiful way to bring to life and connect our learning from science and social studies over the year. 

The event we attended this year is titled “Word of Plants” (check HERE for more info on visiting the garden with your family). 

Students got to check out a real live eagle’s nest!

We also learned how many of the things we use everyday come from plants... 

We visited “Africa” and learned about the many uses of coffee beans... in this case, for mask making!

A finished product!

While there, we dug for treasures in the sand =)

Then moved on to one of my very favorite parts of the Botanic Gardens: The Japanese Garden.

When I was much younger, my family used to take frequent trips to the Botanic Gardens for picnics - and my personal favorite - feeding the fish. It’s a little known secret that the fish in the Japanese gardens go nuts for bread! (shhh...) I brought our class their own loaf, and without telling any of our 1st graders the purpose of all this, had them lay down on their bellies on the dock. On the count of 3 I told them to drop a crumb of bread in the water. I wish you could have seen their faces!!! The fish came out of nowhere and were so thick you could reach down and touch them =)  I can’t begin to describe how exciting it was to able to share one of my favorite childhood experiences with your children... and I have a feeling it’s one they’ll never forget! 

This duck got a little nosey so we decided to let him take part in our little treat...

And no worries - we washed those little fingers thoroughly before enjoying our own picnic lunch!! ;)

 It was such a fun day and makes me grateful that we have such an incredible place for students to learn right here in out city. If you’re looking for a something fun to do this summer, I encourage you to visit the Botanic Gardens! It’s become increasingly more kid-friendly over the years, now with dozens of play and learning opportunities designed with children in mind.

Another little tidbit worth mentioning is what happened after the World of Plants event ended... we had a little extra time to explore my students were fascinated by the plants in the garden (where their seeds were, if they were edible, etc.) as we had just wrapped up our plant unit. As we were exploring, we were lucky enough to happen upon an incredibly knowledgable woman who was the head gardener of the area we were exploring. She was so kind and helpful to the students - answering all their questions and showing them how to carefully touch herbs to smell them without damaging the plants. 

They loved. every. minute.

Thanks to Memphis Botanic Gardens and the incredibly motivated learners in 1-D our trip was such an enormous success!