Hi SEEDS!
Here are the minutes from our meeting on Monday night. Sorry
about the long email.
We began the meeting by sharing what volunteers had done at
their schools. The volunteers at Orchard School had done a great
"bird kite" activity with the kids, where they had the kids decorate
paper bags and make them into bird kites (there will be information
about this activity in the SEEDS office soon). They said that the
kids loved the activity and that the kites actually worked really
well. Volunteers were also given a chance to let the group know about
any problems they had experienced, but nobody had any problems.
Please remember that all volunteers should feel free to email Sarah or
myself if you need help, have a problem, or just want a little extra
guidance.
Please be aware that elementary schools may have an April
vacation coming up. Talk to your afterschool program directors to
make sure that you know when it is.
Sarah announced that on April 14th from 10-2 at the Burlington
YMCA there will be a YMCA Healthy Kids Day (she sent out separate
emails about this as well). Michelle Cunning is the woman organizing
the event, and she is a great supporter of SEEDS. We would really
like to help her out with this event by providing her with volunteers
and maybe even bringing a special SEEDS activity. There was a
brainstorming session for activities to bring to this activity. As
Sarah stated in her email, please email Sarah or myself if you can
volunteer or have an idea about an activity to bring.
On Friday afternoon, Sarah and I are going to be going shopping
for SEEDS. We have some items on the Wish List already, but please
email us with any ideas that you have for art supplies, books, games,
or anything else that you think you could use for SEEDS activities.
We mentioned a resource who you may find helpful. Jess Sankey
works for Chittenden Solid Waste Department to bring activities about
composting and recycling to classrooms in the area. She has teamed up
with SEEDS in the past to bring her prepared lessons to the kids
during the allotted SEEDS hour. If you are interested in having her
come and bring her composting bins and other activities to your
schools, please let us know and we can give you her contact
information. Be sure to ask you afterschool directors about this
beforehand. Jess can do cool things like create worm bins for the
kids to keep and maintain at their schools!
We went over a few lesson plan ideas. These ideas will all be
on the counter in the SEEDS office for the next few days:
- Trash and Population Pressure: Create a 5x 5 foot square on the
floor. Give all the kids a piece of "clean" trash (perhaps a piece of
crumpled newspaper?) Have one kiddo step inside, and then invite a
friend to come in. Have that friend invite a third friend, and the
third invite a fourth, etc. Once all the kids are in, have them drop
their trash and walk out. Look at the amount of trash on the floor
and discuss how this relates to population pressure in real life.
- Soil on the Run (from p. 77): This activity involves placing soil
and seeds on a tilted baking pan and pouring water on it to observe
how the soil runs off and the seeds couldn't grow like that. Then
give the kids sticks and other objects to make barriers and see if
they can figure out ways to minimize erosion.
- Erosion Freeze Tag: Have a "freeze" tagger and an "unfreeze" tagger.
The freeze tagger is a "barrier", the unfreeze tagger is "rain".
All of the other kids are soil. Play freeze tag using these rolls.
- Make your own watershed: Make a model watershed, and then change
around characteristics of it to see where colored water "pollutants"
go when it rains.
Last, we handed out mid-semester evaluations. There are more of
these available if you would like to fill one out - they will be in
the SEEDS office.
I hope you all have good weeks, and enjoy your time at the schools,
Heather
--
Heather Fjeld
University of Vermont
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