Cooperative Elementary
The school year has started and the Kokanee class Wilderness Explorations is off to a great start! New and returning students begin the year together by exploring the beach and forest. It will be a year of deepening each student’s understanding of how to care for nature as they learn what it means to be a “Naturalist.”
Our Ravens class students, parents, and teacher hiked into the Olympic National Forest for a two night backpacking trip! This trip was inspired by class studies of Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, a young adult story of surviving in the wilderness and Newberry Honor title. We hiked to an old plane crash site and had incredible experience exploring and being in the wild woods together.
Annual beach week for the Coho class was so much fun! We explored water, land, shadows, and designed our own beach treasure bags. Building boats and creating a class mandala out of natural materials gave students an opportunity to be resourceful and creative!
The Kokanee class is enjoying spring at Seahurst! The nice weather allows us to bring the classroom outside, where there are many opportunities to learn while hiking, writing in journals, drawing and identifying flora and fauna.
The Raven class just completed our spring session, taking home a handful of wildcrafting and creative experiences. We brought the outdoors in to create water, vinegar and oil infusions, decoctions, hydrosols and a bit of crafting with clay to make tea cups and a recipe book. And of course the joy of experimenting to create some of their own recipes.
Cedar play school kids had fun experimenting with mixing oils and color together! They enjoyed watching the colors shoot out of pipettes and blowing on the bubbles to see what happens.
Our Cedar Play School students designed, created and then became robots!
The Bridge School Community had a fun night together dancing, face painting, and crafting!
Projects for the “Rebuild, Refinish, Reuse” workshop are well underway; it’s always fun to discover how many layers and colors of paint are hiding! Sanding the wood is a practice in patience and perseverance and students are reminded that they are building grit as they work toward a finished product – much like walking uphill on a hike and reaching the top with its scenic view.
Congratulations to the cast of The Aristocats KIDS for a fun and engaging performance! Integrating the arts doesn’t simply enrich our program, but offers children access to a vital creative resource. Our theater activities include acting games, improvisation, play-writing and an annual musical production.
