Day 2

Today was a interesting day as I got to go on a field trip to Delco Park.  I won’t lie, I did have some problems with the trip such as walking there by foot which took an hour there and another hour back.  Although, it wasn’t that terrible, it was an extremely boring walk.  Once we arrived at the Park, we had a guest speaker who lifted my mood with his activities that were rather fun and interesting.  One of those activities I found to be fun was writing a *haiku.  However, they weren’t normal haiku’s. No, we based each sentence off three random words we found on a random object or magazine page. Writing the haiku’s was fun and intriguing as it required us to be very creative.  My three random words were; public, park, and nature.  We worked to turn these words into the following Haiku.

Free to the public
The park's elegance so true
Filled with nature's glow
After the guest speaker finished his lesson and activities, we moved onto to the "Little World" activity.  The little world activity could have been done in the field near our school as we only needed a piece of ground to observe. Going to Delco Park gave us some room to spread out, nice facilities to learn in, and some exercise walking over and back.  The focus was to train our senses to observe details on a smaller and smaller scale. With good focus on the task, this activity could be done in about 30 minute. In order for you to better understand this activity, it is easier to simply give you the instructions provided by the teacher.

“Step 1:

Mark off a single square foot of ground [we just estimated this part while trying to avoid the bird poo which was everywhere, at least around the lake].

Step 2:

Look at the ground you marked off from a standing position.  Notice what you see, and describe the area.

Step 3:

Kneel down and describe it from that vantage point.  Notice the things that you missed when you were standing. Notice how the square patch of ground begins to take on more interesting aspects as you get closer.

Step 4:

Lie on your belly and explore the enclosed area in detail. Look at it as though you were an astronaut on a strange planet. If you find something in that square foot – an insect, worm, or plant – that captures your imagination, follow it/observe for as long as you like. Don’t analyze it, just experience and appreciate the difference.”  Pulled from Exercise 2-5: "Small World" by Tom Brown, Jr.

So now that you understand the procedure, I hope you can understand that it wasn’t a very complex activity.  My square foot of land was on the shore of the lake.  Standing I observed rocks, water, grass, a stick and a dog that walked through my square.  Kneeling, I saw ants, spiders, spider webs, and aquatic plants.  While lying down, I watched the spider building it's web.  This activity gave me a different perspective on small parts of the park.

 I really liked this outside activity and overall had a pretty good time.  Once we were done with the activity, we were allowed to just hang out and enjoy being outside with our friends.

* Haiku is a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world.  In our haiku's, you didn't have to write about the natural world but what fit the three random words you had.