Shelter building with our Naturalist!

Hello All!!

Today was a beautiful day for expanding important life skills through some hands-on wilderness survival exploration!!

Our 2nd through 5th grade students were challenged to stretch their cooperative muscles in order to bridge the gap between what they already know and what information they might lack in order to achieve a goal. That goal was to make a functional poncho or tarp shelter (proper campsite selection will be factored into another lesson), with only 3 varied lengths of 550 cord, no tools....and no demonstration to work from.

Our kiddos navigated issues such as having multiple strong leaders on the same team, time constraints, complications with planning, resource limitations, and the value of good communication and cooperation. Through this exercise, they discovered that they were capable of working through any such hurdles in order to bridge that knowledge gap and still create a shelter that would provide them with some protection from rain/wind and some warmth when huddled up.

They all achieved this with very little help from me, as I served only to gently guide them by perhaps giving them a tip or two when needed.

We will be revisiting this skill later in the month to take what they've learned, and apply it to some common knots and shelter configurations.

I am so very proud of them!

Here are a few pics for you to enjoy!

In Adventure,

Erika