To The Woods 101

Today has been mostly introduction related things to the class with a few activities to go with it. At first we organized into Ms. Kancler’s room to go over the main Blogspot for the STEMmersion and plans for how things are going to go for the last days of the year. When we were done going over the main website, we read a series of quotes by those that have gone into the woods before us. Some people, such as myself, used paper copies while others just used what was on the Blogspot to read it digitally. We also did a short activity where we traced our hand on paper and wrote our names along with five things about us. We went around with these papers and shared with others who we were.
Afterwards we were also split into two groups did a small activity where we basically played “the floor is lava” but with the idea that we are crossing a creak. Each group ended up using the same strategy, which was having a train of people using the four pieces of wood we were given to caterpillar our way across, then have one person go back with all the pieces of wood to get more people over. Other ideas included two people scooting across, then one person going back with all the wood. Once a team got all their people across they were rewarded with candy. When we were done with that activity we began trying to setup our own Blogspots or wix pages for our blogs to go on and use. Unfortunately technical difficulties got in the way for those of us that wanted to use Blogspot. Some were able to figure out the issue and help others get theirs to work. Once we used up our time setting up the blog spots/wix pages we went into Mrs. McDaniel’s room to listen to a guest speaker, talking about how we can be recording our experiences each day. In part of it we were closing our eyes and creating a clear picture in our minds of a pond, bird, and a boat. We shared most people’s interpretations of this scene with details we added in our minds, seeing how different people can interpret general facts, showing us the importance of specifics. We also listened to our speaker reading some entries by famous writers in terms of their experiences in the woods. When we were done with the main portion of listening he had us try and make a sample entry based on our memories in a place where there was heavy influence from nature. The example I used was the pond and nature trail outside the Creation Museum. We did our best to use all of the elements we learned about and covered with the guest speaker and eventually we ran out of time and had to go to recess, then lunch. After lunch we grabbed our yoga mats and went into the gym to prepare for yoga. Unfortunately our instructor had something come up and wasn't able to be there. In the end we just came up with more ideas to refine the guidelines of the STEMmersion course and went back to Ms. Kancler’s room to work on our Blogspot entries. In general though, I think I had a pretty good time today. The activities were fairly fun and nothing went terribly wrong. Any problems that came up were resolved quickly. I was hoping to actually do some yoga today, but it might have been for the best. A decent number of people hadn't brought their yoga mats because it was the first day and they didn't know if they needed it on the first day.