Project Wild

It all started with waking up to a flash flood watch on a Tuesday morning. Tropical Storm Hermine was making her presence known. She didn't want to miss the chance to participate in the first Project Wild seminar of the semester. Who can blame her, it was a BLAST!

Despite the rain we were seated under a pavilion where we were facilitated by wonderful instructors. Evidence below indicates that I was present.

We were given a set of wonderful activity books and being very free added to their appeal. To make the book and experience even more wonderful we did a 'hike' through. I can now say I am able to find my way effectively through these books. My free book bag indicates so. Some might be wondering at this point, 'We got a free book bag?' Not we I would say, but me. Due to my fast counting skills I won chips for correct answers and was able to trade them in for my awesome reusable bag. Woot, Woot!!!

Below is an example of the questions and how dedicated we were looking up the answers in our big book of activities.

Sitting and listening wasn't the only thing we did. We happened to have a rapper give us a guest appearance. Some know her as S-Dawg, but you may know her as Susan.

Not only was S-Dawg there but Kristin Krazy Kritter from the block was too, sporting her urban fashion.

After doing the same icebreaker activity year after year, the bingo wildlife icebreaker activity was an awesome break from the norm. The activity had us have a black out on our paper before we called out BINGO, which made this a bit more challenging for the lazier ones of us. For those who are extroverts this was just an opportunity for them to talk and move around. This was not a challenge for them at all.

We participated in several activities that are featured in the free books that we got. One had us differentiate between animals found inside dwellings and outside or ones that were domesticated or wild. There was much controversy over what has been domesticated. Just because your grandfather had a pet deer that doesn't mean it would be an appropriate pet for the masses. The fact still remains that there have been no other animals domesticated in the past several hundred years. As you can see from below there was some controversy in our group, but not wanting to stir the waters I said nothing.

To wrap up the event we were divided into five groups given an activity for us to organize then present to the class. Our group was called:

Our activity to present was Aquatic Charades which was geared toward preschool to second graders. children learned how important water was to not only humans, but plants and animals as well. To get the kids up and moving as they most often want to do we had them act out (a.k.a. charade) water being used one at a time and the others were to guess how the water was being used. The coolest part of our presentation was the opening song, sung to the tune of 'Frere Jacques.'

Note:Please excuse the unsteadiness of the camera, I'm a teacher not a videographer. :)

Now that you have had the full experience I hope you are more interested in Project Wild and the learning opportunities it makes possible.