Nature Walk Scavenger Hunt and Sketches

Are you heading outdoors with a bunch of kiddos to look around? How about a Nature Scavenger Hunt? A couple of years ago, I worked for the Nature Center in town, Peabody Mill Environmental Center, and they sent me off to a Kindergarten to do a class visit. I thought an outdoor exploration of the playground, discussion about plants and their parts, and a sensory nature walk/scavenger hunt would be great! I met with multiple classes that day and we had a blast!

This is a great project and can be adapted for an outing with a bunch of scouts,
a camp experience, an art classroom, general classroom, homeschooling field trip, etc.

Prepping For The Lesson:
This is a nice lesson that requires very little prep--although you may want to buzz around the playground before the kiddos join you, so you have an idea of what is out there that you might want to point out to them.

Also, you'll need to print out the scavenger hunt form--I used one from The Bird Feed NYC--they have a bunch of them there (and some other neat stuff too!). We would all be using the same form and filling it out as a class (each class got their own). I glued the scavenger hunt form to a large piece of construction paper, so I would have room to draw my diagram of a flower and its parts. I also wrote some good scientific words on the poster such as: look, listen, touch, smell, observe, identify, dissect, and collect (apparently I misspelled dissect the first time around!).

I also brought a bunch of star stickers, a sharpie for me, some pencils and sticky notes, too.

Starting Off:
I met the classes in the art room and told them that we'd be heading outside to do some exploring. We talked about using out senses to experience the world around them. However, we would not be using our sense of taste! No licking the trees! I then went over the rules for outside behavior and how we'd be working together to complete the scavenger hunt form.

Moving Outside:
We went out and sat down. We experienced the playground by using our senses and we discussed what we heard, saw, felt, and smelled. We checked off as many things from the scavenger hunt form that we could while sitting there--it was quite a bit!

Then I let the children move around and I pointed out a few things that I thought would interest them, such as a little mushroom I found, etc. We stopped and looked at a dandelion and we discussed the parts of a flower and I drew them on the poster and labeled the parts. They loved this part and they really enjoyed dissecting the dandelions and seeing up close the parts of the flower!

Wrapping It Up:
We took a couple of minutes to see if we could find anything else on the list, then I brought them over to the picnic tables and gave them each a pencil and a sticky note and invited them to draw a picture of something they saw, heard, touched, or smelled today on the walk. I them glued their sketches all around the edges of the poster and gave the finished piece to their teacher to display in the classroom.

In the future, I could make the poster a bit better, I think, but I really liked how this easy lesson came together and I loved the sketches the children drew--it was great to see what they took from their time outside.

Enjoy!

Book Review, Kandinsky & Synesthesia

Kandinsky is one of my favorite artists. I love all of the colors and shapes and lines in his work. Just recently, in grad school, I learned that he could hear colors, something that is called synesthesia. 

Synesthesia is when one sense triggers another. This enhanced "5th sense" can manifest in different ways: some people see colors when they see numbers, others hear colors or taste a certain flavor when experiencing everyday noises or music. Just about any possible combination of the senses is possible. Many famous musicians and artists are synesthetes, Lady Gaga, Jimi Hendrix, and Duke Ellington, just to name a few!

When I was at my local library, I saw a book called "The Girl Who Heard Colors," by Marie Harris, a New Hampshire author. I picked it up and, to my surprise, it was about a little girl who has synesthesia. She hears colors when she experiences everyday noises.

When I read this book, I immediately thought of Kandinsky and thought it would be wonderful way of explaining synesthesia and Kandinsky's work to younger children. I was so excited, I started talking about it to my children and explaining that Harris has met other synesthetes. She often asks, "What color is seven?" to her young audiences. Most children won't know how to answer this, but some will say "yellow" or "blue" (there's no "right" answer for seeing a number as a color, it is personalized). My children all went "hmmmm," except for my 6-year-old who was playing Legos in another room and yelled, "Seven is black. Five is yellow." He says he only knows the colors for 1-10 and promptly listed them for me.

Does my son have synesthesia? I don't know. What I do know is that he has trouble hearing (he is partially hearing impaired) so I find it intriguing that he can see numbers as colors. I wonder if his brain decided to start making sensory connections in other ways. 

I think this book will give your students something to talk about. The story encourages seeing things from another's point of view and being sensitive when people have reactions to things that we may not understand. In one part of the book, Jillian is overwhelmed by the cacophony of noises in her classroom and puts her hands over her ears--the sounds and resulting bombardment of colors that she experiences are too much for her. 

Sometimes we think everyone is experiencing the world just like we are. This book does a wonderful job teaching a bit of empathy in a sweet way. Check it out!