BEYE Discovery

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Visiting Professional Christine Fisher

Post Contributed by Jocelyne Adkins, Program Director/Educator

On October 9^th we were thrilled to host Christine Fisher, a Beye parent, artist, and proprietor of Headwater Organic Farm. Christine was assisted by her son Matthew and they worked as a team to share information about organic farming and maple syrup production. Following the presentation, the students were excited to participate in a maple syrup tasting. They sampled light, medium, and dark amber syrups. All were yummy, but of course each student had a favorite!

Christine then led students in an art project that celebrated fall color in all its glory: Drawing and collaging leaves with lots of colorful patterned papers. These are displayed on the second floor landing, just above the auditorium. It is beautiful!!! Do scroll to the bottom to see photos of the display : )

Christine with photographs of Headwater Organic Farm

Christine, ready to begin the maple syrup tastings

the 3 grades of organic maple syrup, ready for our tasting

Maple syrup tastings! Yum, Yum, Yum!!!!

Mikel

Ben

Cassie

Ms. Jenkins and Ms. Hartline, with gifts of organic maple syrup from Christine and Matthew

Making collaged leaves

Leila

Anika

Emily

Andrew

Jackson

Norah

Ms. Hartline

Isaac

Collaged leaf display

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Visiting Professional, Nigene from Trailside Museum

Post Contributed by Jocelyne Adkins, Program Director/Educator

Hummingbird Station

To conclude our week-long study about birds, we welcomed Naturalist Negin Almassi, from the Trailside Museum in River Forest, on October 5^th. Negin engaged the older students in an activity that encouraged them to consider how birds’ beaks and feet have adapted to their habitat and diet. She set up 7 different stations with common tools (pliers, tweezers, chopsticks, tongs, slotted spoons, pipettes, etc.) to mimic the shape and style of a variety of bird beaks. Then bird “food” items such as dried rice (to mimic insects under bark), water in a beaker (to mimic nectar) and flying marshmallows (to mimic flying insects) gave the children a bit of a workout as they tried to capture their “dinner”, learning which tool/beak functioned best with each food source. This was fun all around from start to finish!

Warbler Station

Bird Beak Identification Sheet from Trailside Museum

Dexter working at the Song Sparrow Station

Song Sparrow Station

Leila at the Robin Station

Maurice working with Negin, Red-Winged Blackbird Station

Maurice working with Negin, detail of berries on branches

Patrick, recording his findings

Negin discussing owl beak and feet characteristics with Emory, Patrick and Daysha

owl specimen, Trailside Museum

duck specimen, Trailside Museum

Joseph, Laila, Anika and Emory with their "Frankenbird" Creations

For our younger students, Negin brought handouts with variety of bird legs, beaks, bodies, heads, and tail feather shapes to give students an opportunity to create a bird of their own design: Frankenbirds!

We were very appreciative to host Negin and learned so much from her workshop today ~ a big thank you to Negin and Trailside for their dedicated work to share their knowledge with us : )

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Bird Sculptures & Donation to Audubon

Post Contributed by Jocelyne Adkins, Program Director/Educator

On Oct. 4th, we read "Olivia's Birds" by child author and artist Olivia Bouler. Olivia, age 11, was moved to action when she heard about the birds of the Gulf Coast, victims of the 2010 BP oil spill. Her first efforts were devoted to people who made monetary donations to the National Audubon Society to help save the birds: for every donation, Olivia painted a specific bird species to give to the donor as a thank you. Olivia created over 500 paintings and a number of these were included in her book Olivia's Birds.

Our students were deeply moved by Olivia's work to help save the birds. We decided that we could do something as well: using recycle materials such as plastic bottles, food packaging, broken toys and other “discarded” material, the students created bird sculptures that they auctioned on October 13th at Beye School's 1st Annual Fall Harvest Festival. You can see the students' sculptures in the photos below, taken at the auction. A big thank you to our students, Beye families and teachers who raised $135 dollars for the National Audubon Society's conservation efforts, through the sale of these amazing found-object bird sculptures! Beye Discovery students also raised an additional $200 for the Beye PTO, through the auction of their framed endangered species illustrations. Kudos!