A small miracle occurred over the weekend.
Like a giant and beautiful mushroom that appears overnight after a storm,
a gorgeous new garden shed appeared under the sheltering branches of our Mighty Oaks.
This new enlarged space will allow us to store and organize our tools much more easily,
take shelter from the rain,
and even perform some garden tasks inside!
A new fire pit also appeared.
And the paved patio continues to evolve by the outdoor sink.
I am hesitant to reveal the names of the elves responsible for all this,
lest any of them are left out, (which is inevitable)
but, let me just say thank you to Ron, Rick, Jason, Bill, Carolyn, Julie, Maggie, Fernando, Arunas, Erica and Yessica,
and many, many more..
We will have to have a special dedication for this new sacred place.
This week I have only one off campus trip:
Tuesday, Nov. 1, Room 209, 4th grade, will finally have their twice postponed trip to Sauganash to study plant communities, and to harvest rare seeds. Join us at 9:00 for a briefing. We return at 1:00 after a picnic lunch.
I am hoping to have the 8th grade out again, but we are waiting till Monday to schedule that.
In the mean time I continue to paste up leaf collection.
We have finished about 30 of 90 total.
Anyone interested in this very Zen task, please let me know and you can join me, or I can set you up to work on your own.
I will also begin post-trip visits to classrooms to consider some of the experiences that we have shared.
For 5th grade, for example, we are doing an analysis of the Island Bio-diversity simulation game that we performed at Sauganash.
4th grade will compiled the results of their discovery and naming of plants endemic to the 5 ecosystems of Sauganash.
6th Grade will do the final analysis and ranking of the water quality tests that we performed at the Chicago River.
As the Mighty Acorns journals are closed for the Fall season, these books will make their way down to my office, where they will be read and responded to by me and... you?
This is a delightful task,
a peek into the natural world through the eyes of these young students.
And they love reading our comments.
Let me know if you would like to help.
Mr. Leki