Looking Closely: what we found after the storm

This weekend a major wind and rain storm hit our area, bringing down leaves and nuts and branches. Two grade 1 classes at Blair Elementary headed outside to see what they could find.

First, we read the book Looking Closely through the Forest by Frank Serafini. The students enjoyed guessing what the different items were on the pages and we talked about "zooming in" and looking closely to notice details in what we were observing. The students were VERY excited to have the change to use "real" scientists' tools and shared the magnifying glasses and cameras amongst themselves. They quickly learned how to use the zoom feature on the cameras.

We spent an hour outside noticing all sorts of interesting items. The students found maple seeds, mushrooms, acorns, moss, lichen, all colours of leaves, a worm, some wasps, a wood bug and pinecones.

The students had all sorts of ideas of what to do with all the photographs we took - "make a movie to show at an assembly", "make a book, you know like last year", "put them on the computer so we can do stuff with them," "make a slide show" and "print them." It's amazing how much six year old already know about digital photography!

The students were also intrigued by my olloclip. Some of the students were very interested in the macro photos I was able to take with it.

I'm looking forward to looking closely at all sorts of outdoor wonders with this group of enthusiastic photographers and scientists this year!

~Janice