The Hike Inn

Last week for my husband’s birthday, we went to the Len Foote Hike Inn in Georgia. It involves a five mile hike up the mountain to the inn and the hike starts at Amicalola Falls State Park. This is also where the Appalachian Trail starts in Georgia. It rained a little on our three hour drive to the park but then it just became overcast.

We got to the park in time for the lunch buffet ($10.95) at the lodge before we headed up the mountain. Then the hike up the mountain was really lovely and I took a lot of pictures so it took us 3 hours to get to the lodge. We had time to sit on the balcony for about 30 minutes before we took the tour of the facility. They use a lot of “green” techniques like solar panels for heating water, compost toilets, and worm compost bins for food waste.

At 6pm, we were called to dinner which was family style. We sat at a table with two other couples: Doug and Ruth from Jessup, GA and Howard and Faye (I forgot where they were from). We had a lovely dinner and great conversation. After dinner, we watched a program presented by Richard Judy about the Appalachian Trail. After the program it was time to head to our room where my hubby and I shared the bottom bunk because I can’t sleep alone! Of course he woke up every 2-3 hours to go to the bathroom which involved getting dressed and heading to the bathhouse. Luckily, the walkway was completely covered because it poured down rain all night.

At 4:30am, I headed to the Sunrise room (game room/gathering room) so I could knit and watch a podcast on my Ipad. At 5am, I was joined by Darvin who has a family BBQ place called Poole’s BBQ in Ellijay that we will visit someday. He is retired teacher also so we had a great conversation. About 30 minutes later we were joined by Paul Longchamps (trail name is Orange Lightening) who would begin his Appalachian Trail Thru-hike that day. He will be blogging about his trip and I will follow along to see how he is doing (Orange Lightening Blog).

At 8am we were called for breakfast and it was delightful! We had scrambled eggs, bacon, peach spoonbread, cereal, and tea/coffee. The food here was exceptional! After breakfast we headed back down the mountain back to real life.

This was our third or fourth visit to the Hike Inn. If you have never been here, I highly recommend it. I like meeting new people and hiking up the mountain plus taking lots of photos. If you want to see the pictures I took, click HERE.

Original picture by Pat Hensley

School Program Volunteer

This sounded like something I just had to check out! I heard about this program from an email I received as a Master Naturalist. The press release stated,

“School Program Volunteers are naturalists at heart who want to share the wonders of nature with 2^nd and 5^th graders, in the park’s Discover Carolina school programs. Some volunteers assist students with their measurements and observations down at the creek. Some volunteers with a naturalist background lead 2^nd graders on a nature hike around Lake Placid. Some lead 5^th graders in the use of a Creative Writing Journal at the park, or assist in a Forest Ecology program.”

So, last week I attended the orientation to find out what the program entailed and what was required from the volunteers. Cathy Taylor, the interpretive ranger in charge of the program was fantastic! I was so impressed with the organization of this program and how well planned this program seemed to be. We went through the motions as if we were the students to see what is actually done. We went to the creek and put on boots so we could find organisms to identify and measure. We also completed the activities that were expected of the students. After lunch we took the hike around the lake as if we were the students too. Of course, since I love hiking, this really interested me.

I really think this whole program is extremely worthwhile. I’m not sure how long it has been in existence but you can tell that it has been tweaked and fine tuned to be the most effective.

After attending this orientation, we are expected to come observe an actual class attending the program. Then we will sign up to volunteer on the day that we would like to be there. There are no preconceived expectations on when we volunteer so we can volunteer for a day, once a week, once a month or even just be available as a substitute.

What an awesome program for students, teachers, and volunteers! I really look forward into helping with this program. If you live in South Carolina, you might check out your local state park to see if there are any school programs available for your class. If you are near Paris Mountain State Park, check out this program! Maybe I’ll see you there!

(Click HERE to see the pictures that I took!)

Original picture by Pat Hensley

Education Buzz Carnival 2/29/12

Another edition of the Education Buzz Carnival is up and running at Bellringers! Don’t miss out on all the fun! See what is going on in the Edusphere. My article on Things That Should Kick the Bucket Before I Do is there but there are lots of other great articles to read too! See you there and don’t eat too much cotton candy!

Original image: Carnival by Pat Hensley

Useful Information In and Out of the Classroom 3/2/12

Here are some interesting sites that I’ve found this week, thanks to my PLN. As a teacher, I feel we have to keep up to date concerning research in our field and current issues in the education system. I hope some of these inspire you, inform you, and even have you asking questions. Thank you for coming by and visiting!

Note: Each resource is labeled with a level and subject area to make it easier to use.

Levels: E: Elementary; M: Middle; H: High; G: General, all levels; SN: Special Needs; T: Teachers

Subject Areas: LA: Language Arts, English, Reading, Writing; M: Math; S: Science; Health; SS: Social Studies, Current Events; FA: Fine Arts; Music, Art, Drama; FL: Foreign Language; PE: Physical Ed; C: Career; A: All

Doodle4Google - “…K-12 students in the U.S. to participate in our fifth annual U.S. Doodle 4 Google contest. Draw your rendition of the Google logo and you may see it on the ultimate gallery: the Google homepage. The winning doodler will also take home a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology grant for his or her school. The theme for this year’s contest is “If I could travel in time, I’d visit...”. That could mean visiting a past, present or future setting—whether it’s traveling back in time to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, to the future to witness everyday space travel, or to just a few moments ago to relive a poignant experience.” (L:G; SA: A)

Google Science Fair - “The Google Science Fair is an online science competition seeking curious minds from the four corners of the globe. Anybody and everybody between 13 and 18 can enter. All you need is an idea.” Deadline is April 1. (L:M, H; SA:S)

iTV Wild - Learn about the animals in the wild (L: G; SA: S)

Seterra - “free map quiz for windows; Seterra 4.0 is a challenging educational geography game with more than 100 different exercises. Learn about countries, capitals, oceans, flags and cities in Africa, Europe, South America, North America, Asia and Australia, using outline map exercises!” (L: M, H; SA: SS)

Calkoo - “On this site you will find superb calculators for practically any purpose. Whether you are preparing a business plan for your start-up company and need to calculate the NPV for an investment, or if you play free roulette and want to invest your possible winnings in stock market, or perhaps you're trying to compare fuel efficiency of several cars you are considering buying - we have everything you need right here!”

Original Image: Tools by Pat Hensley

Consequences

In Rewards, Punishment and Consequences, ksquirkyteacher talks about a video she had to watch for professional development. Then she adds,

“To say that kids should never be punished or rewarded is ridiculous. That sends a clear message to the child that they can get away with anything. Adults have consequences and so should children, otherwise they are forming bad habits that will stay with them for life.”

When my own children were growing up, I had a really hard time with natural consequences. There would be battles over wearing a coat or hat, or many other trivial things. I know I am a control freak so allowing my children to suffer natural consequences was really hard for me. Then I had to think about what is the worst thing that could happen. When I put it in a different perspective, it really helped me let my kids suffer natural consequences. Then I stopped being the bad guy and they learned from their mistakes (usually, not always). Sometimes they had to suffer the consequences more than once.

As Ksquirkyteacher mentions, adults deal with this all the time and there usually isn’t someone out there to warn about the consequences. Hopefully the many things we learned as a child prepare us for the consequences so we can make better decisions.

The thing that helped me was to give my students choices and discuss the consequences beforehand. At the beginning this took more time than later on in the year because they heard the choices and consequences before.

An example using school work:

1. They can complete their work on time and enjoy recess.

2. They can refuse to do their work and do it during recess.

I don’t feel this is a punishment where I would be taking away their recess. Instead I feel that they are making the choice and accepting the consequence. The important part of this learning is the role of the teacher. The teacher must make sure that the consequence is followed or the student will not learn which behavior benefits the most.

As adults, I believe we go through the same process of looking at choices and consequences but we have done it for so long we take it for granted. We think that everyone goes through the same process. But if we don’t teach our students this process, they won’t have this skill to use as an adult. I believe this skill is important to be successful in life no matter what you do.

How do you deal with behavior and consequences? Please share.

Image: 'DSC01346'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/19517696@N00/77229615