Horizon House Learns About Community at Shelburne Farms

By Norah Munn, Sean Trifaro, Addie Hunter and Addison Urch

Horizon Students at Shelburne Farms

All of Horizon House went to Shelburne Farms to learn about fall, the forest and Mother Nature. We wondered why the forest is a community.

Now, we think it is a community because animals live there and it’s a habitat. We learned that animals help the earth. Earthworms make air holes and salamanders eat fungus and bugs.

Addie didn’t expect her Dad to find a snake and Sean didn’t expect a snake to crawl up his leg when he was sitting in the forest! Addison didn’t know they would be able to play in the forest and Norah was surprised that they were able to help make benches.

Each group had a guide. Norah’s group used wire brushes to take bark off of wood and then sandpaper to smooth the wood. Everyone got to make a bench by using three pieces of wood. One was flat and firm to sit on and 2 pieces were round and fat to hold it up. We took them apart when we were finished sitting.

Some groups learned that it takes many years to make soil with air, water, rock and minerals.

All groups learned that the forest helps us by giving us maple syrup, apples, plums, other food, firewood and paper. Trees also give us oxygen. The trees have different wood. Sapwood is on the outside closer to the bark. That’s easier to cut than the middle of the tree which is heartwood. The number of rings tells how many years it’s been alive. We searched for a tree up to our waist, one we could wrap two fingers around, two hands around, that we could hug, that two people could hug, three then four people and one that had fallen down.

We all learned a lot. Going to Shelburne Farms was awesome!

Learning to be a Writer

In Mr. Bolger’s class students learn that creative writing is about noticing the things that are around you. They went for a walk to practice this skill. Enjoy the video and the poem the class created after their writers’ walk! Please leave a comment. Students are eager to hear what others think of their work.

Creative Writing in Mr. Bolger’s Class

A  Clouds-Shaped-Like Unicorns Day

This morning we ran out the door and we went for a walk.

It was a warm-moist-air day, a sweet-pollen

apple-pie-for-no-reason day.

It was a rain-sprinkly, fresh-breezy day

a bunpy, scratchy, thorny-walk day.

An asphalt-like-a-drum, fall-in-the-ditch

muddy-pants, squishy-shoes day.

We felt happy and joyful and calm, excited warm, cold and dreamy.

A stomach-growly day.

Could you hear the windmill whirling or the crickets chirping

on our bird-singing, grass rustling, cars-whooshing,

leaves rattling, far-off-swings-creaking day?

Did you see the chickadee? And the circling hawk, the butterfly-fluttering?

It was a scary, crinkly-striped yellow-jackety

plane-in-the-sky day.

A clouds-shaped-like-unicorns day.