Silverwood Park - Alyssa Baguss and Eileen Cohen - 4.0 hrs
This was my first week at Silverwood Park. At Silverwood, they offer a large variety of programs- ranging from senior living outreach to ceramics. Among these options, I am scheduled to have a consistent residency at their Tuesday morning class for preschoolers called Doodlebugs! The class is structured as a sort of collaboration between a naturalist and a teaching artist. Each class has a theme, and the two teachers, Sam and David, work together to create a curriculum that teaches their theme through interactive play, getting outside, and working on an art project!
On my first day here, the theme was birds. The class runs for an hour so it started with play, reading, and a short lesson about birds. After that, the group bundled up and went outside to play in the snow. We walked on the frozen lake and made patterns in the snow by following each other in a straight line. Everyone was having a lot of fun, especially the instructors! The outdoor activity was followed by snack and our art project , which was making bird puppets using oil pastels. It was pretty amazing to see kids so young using the materials to blend colors! I helped assemble the puppets, and by the end of the hour all of the doodlebugs seemed to be warming up to me.