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Earth week meets poetry month at crestwood

4/26/2015

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REMINDER: OUTDOOR WORK DAY ON SUNDAY, MAY 3, FROM 9AM-3PM! ALL ARE WELCOME!

Crestwood students and staff celebrated Earth Week in many ways last week! On Tuesday, there was an all-school assembly where students sang songs, watched a short play, and went outside to watch Joe House climb a tree (click here for a video of this from last year!). On Wednesday, third graders braved wind and snow (yes, snow) to plant peas in a snack garden. On Thursday, 4th and 5th graders spent the morning with volunteers from the Dane County Tree Board learning all kinds of fun stuff about tree planting, identification, utilization and health. Hopefully we'll have some more pictures of these activities to share soon. 
Picture
Earth Day
BY JANE YOLEN

I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.
Each blade of grass,
Each honey tree,
Each bit of mud, 
And stick and stone
Is blood and muscle, 
Skin and bone.

And just as I 
Need every bit
Of me to make
My body fit,
So Earth needs
Grass and stone and tree
And things that grow here
Naturally.

That’s why we 
Celebrate this day.
That’s why across
The world we say:
As long as life,
As dear, as free,
I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.

(Source: PoetryFoundation.org)
Picture
Forgotten Language
Shel Silverstein

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said, 
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling, dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?

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Woods Work

4/19/2015

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Picture
Big pile of gloves awaiting the arrival of a crew of young workers.
Last week's stunning spring weather inspired several classes to go outside. A few of us on the Outdoor Ed committee seized the opportunity to put kids to work! A large pile of wood chips  is blocking Highlands Ave at the end of the main woods trail. We gathered buckets and wheelbarrows and harnessed some of that Kid Energy to spread those wood chips on the trail.
Picture
Climbing on the pile to create mini-avalanches was the fun part for many kids.
It can take a little while to find a work rhythm. You can't have 15 kids at once on the mulch pile without someone getting wood chips in their eyes and hair. And some kids are more adept at filling buckets than others! Eventually, groups spread out into different tasks: loosening mulch at the top of the pile, filling buckets to dump in the wheelbarrow, and spreading chips on the path near the classroom circle.
Picture
Picture
View from the top of the hill near Highlands Ave.
This week and we hope to start planting cool weather crops! If you want to help out, please let your child's classroom teacher know, or contact us.
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april showers...

4/12/2015

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Picture
Last week's rain seems to have sprung spring into action! The last of the snow piles have melted and gone, the grass is turning green, and now look at the 2nd grade circle garden (pictured above)! All those tulips have poked through the ground and are growing happily amongst some rogue crocus flowers. Last fall, the 2nd grade team unexpectedly ended up with twice as many tulip bulbs as they anticipated, so there were plenty leftover for some experimentation. You can see the clumps of flowers in the center of the circle; for those, the kids planted bulbs upside down, sideways, shallower and deeper than the recommended depths to see if those factors would affect how they grow. As you can see, nature sometimes has amazing ways of self-correcting for those little adjustments!

Soon enough, it will be time to plant cool weather crops like peas, salad greens and radishes. If you want to help out, be sure to keep checking our Volunteer page or contact your child's classroom teacher about volunteering.
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    Crestwood's OE committee is  dedicated to outdoor learning for all students.

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