Yesterday we went on an awesome hike and we learned a lot! Claudia, our First Nations support worker, took us to the forest to learn more about native plants on our island.
We decided to do a little math on the way and used a hip chain to measure the distance to the trail. Justin wore the hip chain. A thin thread fed out of it as we walked and counted each meter. We estimated the distance and time as we walked. It was 1112 meters from our school to the entrance of the trail. It took us about 14 minutes to walk that distance.
In the forest we saw many different types of trees (cedar, hemlock, fir, alder, and pine). Claudia taught us how to tell them apart by looking at their bark and needles and by looking at the top of the tree. We also saw many other plants that the First Nations people used (salal, huckleberries, ferns, and labrador tea). We are going to use some of the Labrador tea leaves to make our own tea next week.
Here are some of the cool things we learned:
Dante-We learned how to tell what type of tree it is by looking at the bark. Moss often grows on the north side of trees.
Justin-We learned that we can make tea out of a leaf that we found.
Sophie-We learned that a hemlock tree always has its tip bent over.
Silkence-We found a nursery log. It is called a nursery log because it has other plants growing on it.
Niall-Trees can stand even if they have been burnt quite a bit. Pine tree needles are extremely spiky.
Fay-The cedar bark looks like straight lines going down. Alder leaves are light green.
Karin-We found a huge tree that was burnt on the side a little. Sometimes salal leaves are huge!
Ana-Claudia told us that the forest had a big fire many, many, years ago.
Jenny-The nursery log had moss, salal, huckleberries, and a little hemlock growing on it.
Sahara-We found tree fungus that was growing up high on the trees.
Oceana-We found a tree that had lots of little broken branches all around it.
Kennedy-We found a tree that had a parasite that made the branches look funny and it takes energy from the tree.
Lily-When we went on the trial we found a flower that looked like a dogwood flower.
What a nice animoto. We have some pines, but more deciduous trees like oak, beech, horse chestnut and ash. Ask is interesting because when the leaves are in bud, they are a black ash like colour. There are often little ways of remembering identifiers, I notice you mention one for hemlock. Your photos are really pretty, it looks like a very beautiful wooded area. I have never tried ‘Labrador tea’, I’d like to! Children learn so much by getting outside, do you ever use the natural colours you find there to do art work? In my last school we used to wrap some white sheets around large trees and pin it there. Then we would create abstracts, using natural colours which we rubbed on. You can have a first session where you find what colours there are and then go back and use ‘nature’s pallet’. I may have mentioned Andy Goldsworthy to you before. Certainly one of the finest nature based artists in the world. he spent six months as an art student living in a forest to understand how things might fit together!
I am waiting to see what the children think about ‘Labrador tea!’.
Mr E
Hawes
Dear Mrs. Watson and the 2/3s,
That sounds like an amazing experience. It must’ve been so much fun to be able to go through and learn how things used to be done.
I’ve never tried Labrador tea before. I love tea though! You’ll have to share if you like it or not after you brew it!
Sincerely,
Mr. Avery
Hello Mrs. Watson and the 2/3’s,
What wonderful activities you have accomplished in the past couple of months. Here in Connecticut, we have many varities of pine including blue spruce, white pine, fir and the evergreen. Many tree types are native here including oak, maple, white and black birch, ash and hickory. No one in our class has ever had Labrador tea and when we discussed it the students all thought of the Labrador dog species! We will check back to see if you liked it.
Mrs. Yammine and the Super STARS!
Dear Mrs.Yammine,
It is great to hear from you again. The only type of Pine trees in your list that I reconise are Fir and Evergreen. So you know we did not try the Labrador tea because on the internet there was information that said DO NOT EAT OR DRINK LABRADOR TEA! But the first nation support worker said she had a friend that drank it all the time so we just did not drink it at all.
Your friend,
Niall
Hello Mrs. Watson and the 2/3’s,
This sounds like a wonderful field trip. You must have learned a lot. In North Carolina where we are from you have oak, white pine, black pine, walnut, maple, and hickory. Around our school it’s mainly tall pine trees. We aren’t allowed in them and we have a few newly planted maple trees. They turn a pretty red/orange color in October/Nov.
The tea you mention no one has heard of Labrador tea. Like Mrs. Yammine we have heard of a Labrador dog and some of us have one.
Who is a First Nations worker? Why are they called a First Nations support worker? What do they do?
What is your weather like now? It looked nice for your day in the natural world. It’s very hot here with most days over 90 degrees F. It’s still spring but we start our summer holidays tomorrow (Friday is our last day) until August 25th.
Roadrunners have learned a lot about asking questions this year. They can ask them all day long. We are a curious group of second graders. We are called the Roadrunners because our mascot is a roadrunner (bird) named Rodney. He wears a backpack and tennis shoes on our school shirts that we can purchase.
Dear Mrs.Todd,
Yes, it was a wonderful field trip and we did learn a lot. Labrador dog! I never knew that there were dogs called that. As you were wandering who is the first nations support is Claudai ,and a first nations support is a person that tells you things about the first nations. The weather rigt now is sunny and a bit windy.
From
Fay