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Show Page 4 OREM GENEVA TIMES Thursday, July 13, 2006 AND IDEAS FROM CLASSROOMS AND EDUCATORS IU1 Plan on Taking a backyard safari Linda Butler I NORTH COUNTY STAFF backyard safari is a fun way for children to learn about nature and appreciate some of the marvelous things that are right in their own back yard. Depending on the ages and interests of the children, this outdoor adventure can last from an hour to an afternoon. A little preparation goes a long way in creating a memorable and edncat tonal expedition. Mom children already possess a naturalist's most important quality qual-ity curiosity A icu simple tools can enhance a child's curios-it curios-it and sense ot adventure. ' live each child a pan ot simple homemade binoculars, made Irom a pan ol toilet paper t tides '1 ape : tit tubes together to-gether with duct tape, at tach a 22-24" piece ol st ring or 1 wine to each side as a neck lanvaru. ana ttiese homemade "auto-locus' "auto-locus' binoculars can help your child zero in on backyard wildlife I .ach child should also have a nature notebook and a pencil The notebook can be made by folding !i-fi sheets of unlined paper in hall and stapling along the side. Older Old-er children may wish to take colored pencils so they can sketch in color. The "Safari Leader" (parent) may also wish to take along several crayons, cray-ons, a spray bottle filled with water, a .'(- to 4-1 oot length of rope or string for each child, a magnifying glass, drink-mi; drink-mi; water bottles, snacks and a lunch, it desired These activities can help turn a backyard into a place of learning and wonder lose observation is an important quality ol explorers. The homemade binoculars can help a child block distractions dis-tractions and zero-in on a flower or an insect Notice the colors and shapes ol plants and insects. Notice how the m , eci moves. Th' magnifying glass will help a child in see more clearly. Worms and '; .ivvlmg insects are fun to watch iirouKh the glass. Beetles, ladybugs and ro!1 -poly bugs are especially fun io observe up close. Notice the colors, how th' legs move, the antennae, the ' es "1 ake a close up view, too, of several sev-eral flowers. Notice how the petals are attached to flowers, pollen, patterns of P"ial.v leal veins or forming seed. I xplore ;i tree Feel the bark. Using a i t ic oti and paper (or a page of the noo'booki make a rubbing of the bark and a nibbing of a leaf by placing the :apet over th' bark or leaf and gently rubbing with the side of the crayon. Li" down at the base of the tree and look up A tree can he a home to many x y -1 v ft E- w 1 I I f 1 I 1 i ? creatures. Perhaps a bird has nested there. Look into the sky. How far can you see? What's up there? Clouds can tell us a lot about the weather. Wispy cirrus clouds are high, 20,000-30,000 feet up. The base of billowy cumulus clouds are usually only 3,000 feet up, though the top may reach 20,000 feet. Cumulus clouds don't usually produce rain, but as they absorb more water and become be-come darker, they can become storm-producing "thunderheads" or nimbus nim-bus clouds. How do clouds form? Explain evaporation and use the spray bottle to show how it works. Squirt some water onto a rock or patio and watch the water "disappear." Older children may already be aware of the waler cycle of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. precipita-tion. Children can feel the air with their arms. Have them experi ence the difference in temperature between shade and sun. Mist their arms with the spray bottle and they can feel the cooling effect of evaporation. The spray bottle can also help explore texture. First, let children feel various objects grass, leaves, flower petals, rocks, etc. with their hands. They may want to feel the objects gentry with their cheeks or lips. Mist things such as a blade of grass, a flower, a rock, dirt and a piece of wood with water and explore the ab-sorbency ab-sorbency of these things. If you spray a feather you can see firsthand how a feather's natural oils repel water; this helps ducks stay dry as they float on the water. Tie the 3-to 4-foot lengths of strings into circles and place on the grass for each child. This is each child's very own "piece of prairie" and he should look closely and list everything he sees within his circle. Plants, soil, perhaps even some insects. Are there different kinds of plants? Different grasses? Poke around a bit and try to look at the soil at the base of the grass. Are there any insects? Ants, often seen as pests, can be fascinating examples of animals orking as a community. Watch how the ants enter and exit their home, how they follow each other on specific paths and how they can carry things that are, to an ant, huge. One of the most profound experiences ex-periences of a backyard safari is that of discovering that something some-thing common can be beautiful and unique. This can be especially espe-cially true of rocks. A dusty gray pebble can become a thing of beauty when sprayed with water. In between activities, children chil-dren can be encouraged to make notes and sketches in their notebooks. Older children may enjoy closely observing and drawing a flower or tree. Very young children can dictate their observations and nature na-ture stories to a parent. A snack or picnic lunch can be a fun conclusion con-clusion to a backyard safari. It's a chance to relax and discuss what you've experienced together. mm wets Michael Rigert NORTH COUNTY STAFF Looking to put more students stu-dents in their seats instead of sluff ing on the streets, Qrem High School has secured a $15,000 truancy reduction grant from the Alpine School District. Joel Miller, an assistant principal at Qrem High, said truancy is a problem at every school, but particularly high schools. "We have open campuses and kids have the wheels," he said. Some of them have a difficult dif-ficult time returning to school after lunch. "How do you compete with Ernie's (Sports Deli) or the lake?" Miller said. Jane Lindhout, Qrem High's principal, said when the school ran its truancy numbers for last year, "ours were higher than any other school in the district." Yet She said two factors likely made the difference: OHS's concerted effort to take attendance in every class every day and a senior mentor men-tor program which increased the total of potential absentee students. "In our mind, it was not adaquate," Lindhout said of the school'6 absentee statistics and its efforts to curb truancy. Academically, truancy is a concern because students must meet minimum attendance standards in order to earn the credits required to graduate. And for teens preparing to enter en-ter a world of employment and responsible citizenry, sluffing is a negative life lesson. "We're trying to help students stu-dents to be more accountable," Miller said. Orem High received the $15,000 grant through a competitive com-petitive process and will use the money to hire a full-time truancy reduction aide. The specialist will track student absences and coordinate unex-cused unex-cused absences directly with students. 'We've already hired a fantastic fan-tastic lady," Miller said. "She's outgoing and friendly." The debut of the new truancy truan-cy reduction specialist position in the fall will coincide with the school's revamped attendance policy that gives kids five days to provide an excused absence note from a parent or guardian guard-ian to administrators. Students who fail to provide proof of an excused absence will be required to attend attendance school a detention classroom class-room where students make up class time and missed school work. "They won't get exactly what they got at school, but it's to help them make up the time," he said. "The whole point is to make the kids more responsible for their actions, to reduce truancy and help them be more successful." Parents are encouraged to support Orem High faculty staff in making sure their children chil-dren attend classes and provide pro-vide excused absence notes for Truancy is so addictive. ad-dictive. And once you do it one time, it's so easy to do it again. Every year there are seniors in jeopardy of not graduating, not because they re not capable or not smart, but because they're short credits." Joel Miller ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL. OREM HIGH SCHOOL iliness and f amity vacations. Miller said when he finished a deployment with the Utah National 'Guard in Iraq, the family went to Disneyland for a week and his kids missed some school. Yet he contacted their teachers beforehand to get homework assignments and keep them up-to-date on class work. "So before we went to the shuttle, they had to have their work done," he said. If unexcused absences are reported, Miller said he hopes parents will work withOrerr. High officials and talk to their children about the dangers caused by sluffing. "Truancy is so addictive." he said. "And once you do it one time, it's so easy to do it again. Every year there are seniors in jeopardy of not graduating, not because they 're not capable capa-ble or not smart, but because they're short credits." (Qrem High School also received re-ceived just under $200,000 in technology grant money from the district. The funds will be used to purchase 120 laptop computers to supplement curriculum cur-riculum for at-risk, ESL and special education students. Utilizing Uti-lizing a educational program called eMINTS.the laptops will be stored on special carts for use in several classrooms at any one time. With the laptops and eM-IINTS, eM-IINTS, Lindhout said the school plans to take a different approach ap-proach to teaching and making mak-ing students with unique needs successful. "We'll be doing significant professional development to get teachers to look at the way they teach," she said. School officials are in the process of purchasing the computers com-puters and preparing teachers rto launch the program this fall. Children learn the ins and outs offtreftghting at day camp :i AST' " ; ANDREA VILLEUAS North County Capt. Ricky Evans shows students from the Lent Legacy Center's Youth Day Cump the equipment on u firetrucfe. Andrea Villegas NORIH COUNTY STAFF Parents who are looking to enroll their children in a fun but educational summer activities without having to spend a fortune for-tune have discovered classes at the Lehi Legacy Center. The Youth Summer Day Camp program runs for an entire en-tire week two hours each day. "We had two sessions this year," Jodi Wade, registration specialist and instructor, explained. ex-plained. "Each session is different differ-ent but all of the sessions get to climb the rock wall, swim and play in the park." The first session, running the week of June 12, was called "Summer Destinations" and students got to explore exciting parts of the world The second session, running this week, is called "Education Week" and the students will get to participate par-ticipate in some exciting educational educa-tional activities. "Every day we do crafts, learning activities and sports games in the gyms," Wade said. On Monday the students walked over to the fire station where Capt. Ricky Evans explained ex-plained to them what it takes to become a firefighter. "You have to attend a lot of school," Evans said. "You can spend at least one and one half years in EMT school. So if you want to be a firefighter you need to do well in school" Students also got to ask questions ques-tions like, "Do you have to go out on calls at night?" While Evans explained that calls come at all times during the day.they are not always out of the firehouse. But even then they have duties to perform. per-form. "We have to keep the fire trucks clean, keep equipment dean and make sure that all the equipment is there and working," work-ing," Evans said. Afterward the students got totake a look at a fire truck. Evans explained the different equipment afire truck caries and what it is used for.Upon reaching the legacy center, students stu-dents were given homework. The two instructors and three helpers passed out a sheet having hav-ing students think about "what they want to be when they grow up." 1 -if i Sv the time students had left they had their camp shirt, a prize, like a mini pinata, a ball, inflatable bowling pins, thistles, tictac4oe boards and ihomework. SFor some families this was the second summer they were attending. (Chase Berry said "My favorite favor-ite thing was last year plaving .dodge-ball." When asked why that was so much fun, ihis sister Sadie Berry said, "Because he likes to hit ipeople." "Well that is one reason," (Chase said, "but also when you tcatchthe ball you can get other people in:" "U liked the fire station," Sadie said, "and tlie swimming last year. That was fun." POOR |