Week of the Wild Reflection

    Going to the Week of the Wild on Wednesday, September 7 was a beautiful day filled with reflection and feeling like I was reliving the sixth grade. I was in the group called Outdoor Adventure with Kirkwood Elementary, and upon arriving shared my activity right away with the students, a book called Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow written by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Beth Krommes. I chose the book initially because of its wonderful illustrations, which I got the chance to peek at in my Children’s Literature class. The book also has poems with guessing games which offers clues as to what’s being described. Then, when you turn the page, not only is the animal/plant/aspect of nature revealed, but also an explanation of how it works or what it does in nature. For example, there is a page describing how dew works and how grasshoppers function both in the morning and in the night.

      Starting the morning, we first headed to a trail area near the main site of the shelter. First we played a game where one person was the “hawk” and everyone else hid from them but the rule was they had to at least have one of their eyes on the hawk the whole time. I got spotted right away, but there were some very good hiders in that group! Each time the leader had to tell them to eventually reveal themselves, because they were so hard to spot. We then preceded with animal tracking, where we walked through long grass and a faint trail, and then down a steep hill to reach a sandy/muddy beach area on the lake. The teacher gave the students and myself a sheet of paper with different common animal tracks. He then gave the students all an old plastic lid that was cut out which they could place around their found track. He then told them how he would make the “mix” (Plaster of Paris) which he described as looking kind of like pancake mix, but how it hardens quickly, though they were planning to pick up their track at the end of the day. He told the students a story of a student who's Great Dane ate the whole dried track once too, which amused them.                         

   The students then set out excitedly to find a track, not wanting to get the common found deer track. To my surprise, a lot of the students found and picked tracks such as raccoon, muskrat, skunk, and opossum. We then walked up a little grassy hill to an area with stone platforms which suggested they were once homes/structures. Human tracking was next. As we walked around all the platforms, the teacher asked the students to guess what was there once. Afterwards, some of the students thought a farm, some a boating/bath house area for the lake-goers, some a village. The teacher then revealed that it was indeed a farm, back in the 1940’s/1950’s before the Coralville reservoir was built. I didn’t know that the lake hadn’t been there before, so it was interesting to learn some history. Basically, the people who lived there were up on a hill, but other areas kept getting flooded. So for them, the farm people were asked to leave so the reservoir could be built to greatly reduce flooding. The teacher then showed us pictures of the structures that were there, which was neat.  

   Going back to the Week of the Wild was my first time there in ten years, when I had gone as a sixth grader with Roosevelt Elementary. I was intrigued to find out that Meredith, the leader, had been in her first year that fall of 2001 when I was there, and when she said she was with the Wetlands, I remembered her! The shelter and campfire and field area looked just the same as I remembered. It was so neat to be back there and even driving through the narrow road I felt like I was reliving the sixth grade. I loved going to Week of the Wild, and think that it’s a great, needed experience to have in the science curriculum. To get up and close with nature and be there for a whole week. Meredith told us that only some schools have a potluck and camp out there the last night, which my school did. What a wonderful and beautiful time to go to Lake MacBride and be touched by nature’s beauty.

ACTIVITY

            For my activity, I brought Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow written by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Beth Krommes (2006). This book has wonderful illustrations of butterflies, flowers, and the like. It is filled with poems which serve as guessing games giving hints as to what’s being described. Then, on the next page descriptions are given and explanations as to how these animals/plants/aspects work in nature. Here is an example of the fourth poem, “He trots through meadow-gold grass in dawn sun furred mysterious a word hunting its own meaning. Who is he?” The answer is then a rabbit and fox, and descriptions are given as to what they do in the wild. I think this a great picture book to share as a lesson in nature as well as with poetry as well.