#fieldtripfriday

More than simply getting out of the classroom, field trip Friday is about exploration, experiential learning, and applying lesson concepts to the world around you. Students are encouraged seeing and real-world instances and practical uses for lessons that may seem abstract or even irrelevant out of context of the rest of their lives. Making these connections and integrating your studies with places beyond home and school introduces a new element to your lessons and is a great change of pace for students and teachers alike.

Category: Creative Arts

Books at the Butterfly Garden

This is the story of one young girl who took the time to observe and learn, and in so doing disproved a theory that went all the way back to ancient Greece. In the Middle Ages, people believed that insects were evil, born from mud in a process called spontaneous generation. Maria Merian was only a child, but she disagreed. She watched carefully as caterpillars spun themselves cocoons, which opened to reveal summer birds, or butterflies and moths. Maria studied the whole life cycle of the summer birds, and documented what she learned in vibrant paintings. 

How important are the nettles in your garden? They are food for the caterpillars. Nettles enable caterpillars to grow strong so that they can form the chrysalis needed for their miraculous transformation into butterflies.

The Nettle and the Butterfly accurately and charmingly shows the main stages of development of a Peacock butterfly through rhyming verse, written by Daniel Bryan, and vivid illustrations by Angela Bryan.

Printed in color throughout on 100% recycled card using vegetable-based inks.

Elsa Beskow’s charming illustrations bring to life this classic Hans Christian Andersen tale of a thumb-sized girl who has big adventures. Thumbelina is so small she sleeps in a walnut shell bed with a rose petal sheet. One day, a toad steals her away from her home and keeps her captive on a lily pad, until some fish set her free to find her way through the countryside. Will Thumbelina ever find a new home among friends? 

This wonderful new edition of Thumbelina faithfully reproduces Beskow’s classic illustrations in a collectable picture book featuring a unique hand-crafted design, premium-quality paper, gold foil signature and a luxurious cloth spine. Create an Elsa Beskow library by collecting all of the gorgeous new editions.

In the unlikeliest of places, Mary Lennox discovers and helps restore an abandoned garden and, in the process, blossoms herself into a creature of loving kindness. Mary’s transformation begins when she meets a no-nonsense housekeeper, a brusque gardener, and a sprightly robin that leads her to the hidden garden. With the help of Dickon, a boy with an almost supernatural affinity for animals and plants, and Colin, her frail cousin, Mary works in secret to bring new life to the old garden. The three friends find their efforts rewarded not only with all the pleasure that blooming flowers bring, but also the blessings of good health and high spirits.

Gathering Blue tells the story of Kira, orphaned, physically flawed, and left with an uncertain future, and challenges readers to imagine what our world could become, how people could evolve, and what could be considered valuable. When she is summoned to judgment by The Council of Guardians, Kira prepares to fight for her life. But the Council, to her surprise, has plans for her. Blessed with an almost magical talent that keeps her alive, the young girl faces new responsibilities and a set of mysteries deep within the only world she has ever known. On her quest for truth, Kira discovers things that will change her life and world forever. A compelling examination of a future society,Gathering Blue challenges readers to think about community, creativity, and the values that they have learned to accept. Once again Lois Lowry brings readers on a provocative journey that inspires contemplation long after the last page is turned.

Keen insights into the realm of human thinking at all ages. Eileen Hutchins is warmly remembered as a founding teacher of Elmfield (Rudolf Steiner) School near Stourbridge, England. She taught, wrote, and lectured extensively on various themes from English literature, especially Parzival.

“Most of those who have to do with education today come rather sadly to the conclusion that children are becoming more and more limited in their powers of observation. Within a certain field they are keenly awake, but they are blind and deaf to much that used to delight most of us when we were young. One can be put to shame by a child of six or seven when there is a question of the make of cars or of airplanes, but the average child of today has no interest for trees, flowers or birds, and passes by many aspects of nature with unseeing eyes.”