Multi-Age Interest Groups Activate Learning in Nature

by Jennifer Carcich

Unity Charter School has started a new cycle of interest groups for students in grades K-5. One of the most popular choices is “Outdoor Winter Fun.” This group challenges students in grades K-4 to take on a task involving the elements outside.

This week’s challenge was to build a “fort” wall that could withstand being hit by snowballs from their peers. With temperatures in the 60’s and snow melting quickly, students and teachers had to find a snow mound large enough to accomplish the task. Once a large snow mound was found, the children experimented with carving out walls, building up walls, making mounds, and even using sticks from the ground to support their walls. One group even created a snow slide for everyone to slide down on for fun. Once constructed, the groups all stood on side of the wall and threw snowballs of all sizes at the walls. They were amazed to see how often their soggy snowballs actually adhered to the walls instead of knocking them down. I wonder what would happen on a colder day with snow that wasn’t as wet? We hope to find out in the weeks to come as we continue our investigations!

About the Author

Jennifer Carcich is the 2/3 Grade Teacher and Sustainability Coordinator at Unity Charter School. This is her fifth year teaching at Unity Charter School. She is certified to teach both general education and special education students and has been in the teaching field since 1994. Jennifer takes pride in helping Unity Charter School and continuing to strengthen its unique and innovative approach to education and bring forth the school’s mission.

The opinions expressed by the author and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Unity Charter School. Unity Charter School is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the author.