Chickens At School

What is the benefit of having chickens be a part of the school experience?

Students can learn a lot through taking care of chickens!  The knowledge they acquire is cross-curricular and will stay with them for a lifetime as it is an authentic learning experience. 

Each day our students work in different crews, for their crew jobs.  The jobs are an important component to the functioning of our school and students are learning responsibility in the process.  This blog post will explain the Chicken Crew.  

Each crew starts by getting their handy clipboard and checklist!  This really helps the kiddo's to be leaders of the crews. 

Students on Chicken Crew are responsible for feeding and watering the chickens.

Our hens get pellets, scratch and scraps.  

Scraps from lunch and snack are saved in these cute tin buckets and given to the hens each morning.  

Making sure the chickens have clean water every day is very important.  This is a task that requires team work and cooperation as the watering cans are very heavy when they are full!

  They also collect, wash and log eggs .  The eggs are sold for three dollars a dozen and the money is managed by the students.  

Sometimes we find them in silly places!  

This little lady thought this was a great place to lay an egg!  One of the tasks of chicken crew is to make and note observations about the chickens.  Finding an egg in an unusual place would be something they would note.  

Once the eggs are inside they are washed and left out to dry. 

After the eggs are dry they are placed in cartons to be sold and placed in the fridge.

When the eggs are washed they are logged and graphed by color and the time of day is noted.  

Our chicken store manager (a student that had to apply for the position) keeps track of the transactions.  Eggs purchased, feed purchased and any supplies are all tracked here.  

We recently purchased thirteen new chicks!  The kids are in love with them and enjoy spending time with them on their lunch break.  Chicken crew also checks the nesting boxes for eggs during lunch and logs the data at that time as well.    

It is a lot of fun having chickens at school and the students are making observations, connections, gaining a sense of responsibility and ownership.   

River Exploration and Observation

I'm back!  I have missed being able to share our adventures in learning and exploring with you.  

Like I've said this school year our theme is Rivers and this quarter our projects are based on river systems and body systems.  

A few weeks ago we walked down to the river that is on the same property as our school.  Clipboards in hand the students were making observations and sketching and labeling what they saw.

We first had to make our way through the alfalfa field.  

*Did you know alfalfa is a nitrogen fixing plant and can be used in guilds?

The school can be seen in the background up on the hill, the hoop house is located on the playground.  We will be installing a drip system soon,

 as we just received a grant to fund the project!

Tyson, the horse, just had to get in on all of the excitement!  The other adult is Miss Erin.  She is my amazing partner teacher!

Students observed scat.  Helping us identify some of the local fauna.  The students guessed this belonged to the coyotes we heard one morning.

More evidence of local fauna... it appears to be the markings of some beavers hard at work!

We stopped to observe the pond and mini-wetland ecosystem. 

 It's quite abundant with biodiversity.  Nature at it's best!

Manure and some fungi, one of my favorite animal kingdoms!    

We made it to the river but stayed behind the fence for safety purposes.  

We headed back to the school house to talk about what we had observed.  On the way we passed the corn field and garden.    We added another observation the next day as we were all scratching the mosquito bites we endured in the name of science.  We can add them to the list of species inhabiting the river system!

Crate Seat Makeover

Last summer I jumped on the crate seat bandwagon and my hubby helped me make six super cute crates.  The crates were donated and we had scrap wood.  I used a left over piece of plywood that my husband had.


One reason why I like the seat crates is because they are a simplified example of one of the permaculture principles which is "stacking functions".  Instead of only using the crates as storage you reuse some old plywood and make them much more versatile.  You can also use as seats, put them together and take a snooze on them, sit on the floor and use them as a little table, as a step stool...etc.


Last year I used regular cotton fabric and even took the time to sew cute little handle strips out of one of my favorite leaf patterned fabric.  This was a learning experience for sure.  DO NOT USE REGULAR COTTON FABRIC  The cotton fabric didn't hold up and I wasn't able to wash them very well.  Needless to say, by the end of the year they were pretty much disgusting.  They were filthy, someone even smashed a PB&J into one!  Yuck! 

So, I decided to recover them with a oil slicker fabric.  Yep, USE OIL SLICKER FABRIC INSTEAD :)  It's kinda like a cheap table cloth type material, which you could also use, you know how I like reusing!  I didn't have an old table cloth so I bought the slicker fabric.  It is slick so that you can easily wipe it off with a wet rag.  Then I used some ribbon for the handle to save on time and because the ones that I sewed just got all wrinkled and sloppy looking.  


I found the cutest owl fabric at Joann's.  Does everyone know that you can get a teacher discount card there for 15%?  I love those teacher discounts!!!

I have really low light in my house today because it is monsoon season here in the southwest.  I'm not complaining though, I have been LOVING these afternoon rain showers!

For a tutorial on how to make the seats go visit Rachelle @ What The Teacher Wants and see her post from last summer!

I think they turned out pretty dang cute, don't you think?!

In other news, my husband and I celebrated our third anniversary yesterday!  It is so nice to be living together again!  

  

Peace Begins With Me {Freebie}

The last month has been full of changes and little miracles.  I accepted a job at a small school outside of Santa Fe and will be partner teaching with project based learning in a multi-age classroom!  I am so excited for this new adventure and feel very blessed for the opportunity!  My husband has been living in Santa Fe since September studying to become a Doctor of Oriental Medicine.  So he came home to Utah and we packed up my classroom (not a small task!) and home and we drove all of our stuff down to Santa Fe!      


As June was approaching I was searching for some kind of learning opportunity for myself.  Something that I could use to better myself, my family and my community.  For the last six years I have dedicated the month of June as a time for spiritual growth and have gone into the mountains of New Mexico with 2,000 yogi friends from around the world for a Yogic immersion.  This year I decided I wanted to do something a little bit different...




 I truly believe that.....

and was looking for another way to contribute to the healing of the people and planet. During my free time much of my energy during the last eight years has gone to living and breathing Kundalini Yoga in search of an inner peace/healing and spiritual experience.  I certainly did find that in my practice and am eternally grateful for the dedication and commitment I found through the process.     

Lately though the intellectual side of me has been leaning toward learning about sustainable practices.  I have been interested in sustainable living for a long time because I believe that a strong force in the disharmony of the world is in part because of the unsustainable culture that most, including myself, have bought into.  

I've wanted to learn ways that I can decrease my negative environmental impact on the planet and the passion for this knowledge lead me to a little/big intentional community known as the Lama Foundation.  

I spent two weeks at the Lama Foundation learning about Permaculture ethics, principles and practices and becoming certified in Permaculture Design.

What is permaculture?

Permaculture is an ecological design system for sustainability in all aspects of human endeavor. It teaches us how to build natural homes, grow our own food, restore diminished landscapes and ecosystems, catch rainwater, build communities and much more.  

This was the classroom at Lama that I shared with 25 other souls from around the country.

     Our teacher was Scott Pittman.  A very knowledgeable man who has been practicing and teaching Permaculture Design for many years.  I found out about the course through The Permaculture Institute.  His wife Arina has a beautiful and informative blog on sustainable living: lotsoflifeinoneplace.blogspot.com 

Each day began with a meditation practice in the prayer room.  At Lama they call this "The Sit'.  You are welcome to use any type of meditation practice that you know or you can just sit.  I chose to do the meditation for a Calm Mind and Strong Nerves that I have been practicing for a few months now.  They have a very beautiful space dedicated to the sit.  We also used this room for a special global meditation during the Venus Transit.    

The water for the shower at Lama is heated with a solar water heater and the grey water feeds a greenhouse.  There is bamboo and other plants growing in planters surrounding the shower.  It is a lot like showering in a jungle!

  

The residents at Lama were so hospitable and loving.  A big thank you to everyone at Lama for making my stay so spectacular!  

I learned SOOOOOO much during the Permaculture Design Course!  I am so inspired to integrate Permaculture ethics and practices into my life and teaching style and to be able to share this with you, through this blog, because together we really can make a change for a better future for all living creatures on this sacred Earth.

I have made some posters to use in my new classroom of the ethics of permaculture which are:  

* Care for the Earth.

* Care for the People.

* Care for the Future.

{Click on the picture to snag your FREE copy}

Leave me some love if you download the posters, and let me know what you intend to do and are already doing to leave this world a better place!