Students Learn that Roger Tory Peterson is “For the Birds”
He was born in Jamestown, New York more than one hundred years ago. Imagine that city one hundred years ago; no television, no computers or any of the many electronic devices that amuse us today, not even cars to take us to entertaining places like shopping malls or sports events. What would a boy like Roger do during summer vacation? “Go outside and look at nature”, answer my audience of second grade students at Love Elementary School. It’s a library class so appropriately I show them Laura Thomas’s exquisite illustrations in Peggy Thomas’s children’s biography For the Birds, The Life of...
Read MoreTeaching the teachers – SUNY Fredonia
Making and reading maps in an outdoor setting is fun and educational as SUNY Fredonia students in the Early Childhood Integrated Teaching Methods course discovered at the SUNY College Lodge in Brocton on August 27 when RTPI staff took over the class. They learned how simple maps of shapes drawn in the sand of the volleyball court can teach geometric shapes. Turning their maps into treasure maps demonstrated how maps can be used as a lesson in spatial awareness. In a concluding activity these future teachers traveled the trails of the lodge property using a specially prepared map to locate...
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