Have you ever wondered how to spend an entire day outdoors with your learners? How do you structure your time? What games do you play? What "lessons" can we explore?
To help us dig into these questions, we invited Manon McPeters (from Wilderness Awareness School) back for Part 2! Her passion and creativity for playing, learning and teaching outdoors is palpable! You'll appreciate her vivid description of a "typical" day and how they use Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature by Jon Young to guide their intentions.
My biggest takeaway from speaking with Manon was when she described what "peak fun" is and how we can use that as a classroom management strategy. This notion of reading the flow of our learners' energies is such an important key in how we observe, listen, and respond to the needs of our kids.
Want to learn a new nature game?! Manon gives a great description of how to play blindfold ninja!
Novelty nature note:
Manon shared some tracking gems! A domestic dog often has more ‘relaxed’ foot muscles. The toes will be more splayed apart, the X negative space will be less defined and the star shaped peak will not be as high. But when you're observing the track of a wild dog, it will have a more sharply defined X.
Cat has a C shape in negative space. Only one lead toe, not two lead toes. Usually don’t register claws in tracks. All toes can fit into a heel pad. Toes of a dog will NOT fit into heel pad space.
My novelty nature note was about black bears and how their cubs can weigh less than a pound at birth and gain over 20 pounds in just their first 3 months of life.
