Elementary Mentorship Program

Full day nature play workshop

We spend a full day at your school to provide mentorship training for your staff and children that focuses on using your outdoor space to provide hands on learning for many curriculum units while reinforcing literacy, math and science concepts.  

We spent 100 minutes with each class outdoors. In one day, we work with 3 different classes.

Educators get to witness the positive changes in behavior and the increase in how children focus, connect and problem-solve when using the outdoors as another learning environment.  By incorporating sensory rich activities and big body play into the curriculum children of all abilities find success while educators witness a set of skills not demonstrated inside.

Three Seasons of Programming

The weather provides the pallet for outdoor curriculum delivery. Below are the following possibilities for each season.

Fall

Fall is the perfect time of year to utilize nature’s loose parts as season’s change and local biota shed their summer clothes. We’ll incorporate what the season has provided us through the construction of clay creatures from organic materials. This stimulates both creative and fine motor skills as students are challenged to “make lemonade” with the resources at their disposal. Additionally, we’ll create Venn diagrams to sort the living and non-living organic matter present in our surroundings, spurring a deeper conversation on the definition of those two terms and their interpreted meaning.

Winter

Like the fall, in winter we can utilize the resources provided to us by the unique weather conditions. We’ll reuse Christmas trees to build shelters and use ice to build structures, both focused on developing planning and social skills while incorporating teachable involving the First Nations. We also incorporate bird feeder builds to utilize planning, creative and fine motor skills into a project that will also incorporate education on the needs of living things and ecosystems. Finally, when permitting, we focus on the process of tree tapping and maple syrup production and processing. A true touch of Canadiana, this activity is always a favourite as students are taken through the tip-to-tail process of maple syrup production while learning of its historical significance (first nations) as well as the biology, chemistry& math involved in its production and processing.

Spring

With the spring comes rising temperatures, melting snow, greener plant life, and mud! “Down and Dirty” as we’ve affectionately named our spring program, gets students out of the classroom and into the dirt. We start by focusing on the dirt itself; as an ecosystem for other living things, as well as its composition, texture, size and origin. We then steer the conversation towards planting and planning. Students focus on the foundations of horticulture and agriculture through hands-on activities in gardening and the cultivation process. We also include whittling activities in the spring; students use potato peelers to whittle tools while reinforcing the concepts of measurement, forces and primitive tools. Finally, when the weather allows, we’ll run a “water wall” activity with the students. We use various containers and tubing to construct fluid-features on a vertical surface. Students sense of measurement, planning and gravitational forced are fortified.