Summer summary and the first day of school

woot!! Today was the first day of school - yeeehaaawww! As I rode my bike downtown to Ryerson to start my THIRD (gasp!) year of this degree, I saw a ton of parents walking their kids to school all the way through the neighbourhood. It got me so excited!

So, today's class was Research methods, and I think I'm going to like it a lot. The prof is very human and approachable, and also the first male prof I've had in the Early Childhood Ed. department.  His name is Bob Rinkoff, and he's from a developmental psychology background, and his research right now is focused on outdoor education and children in mountain wilderness environments. Pretty awesome, as I've been getting excited about that kinda stuff too - playgrounds, adventure learning, outdoor schools and classrooms. Zowee.
Anyway, it seems promising.

The summer went by so fast - I can hardly believe it. Oh! I promised some more photos of the end of Snail Trails Camp - here they are:

So - Snail had a Carnival to celebrate the end of camp, and we had a lot of different carnival-esque activities for everyone to get involved in.  This is a photo of the giant snail that Alison and I built with the kids - 2 x 4s and screws, duct tape and sheets, and the head is made out of foam core.

This giant Snail really wanted to play on the playstructure...

...and looked really wonderful after the kids and their families applied beautiful colours to it's shell...

We put food colouring into spray bottles - and we used the same thing to do another activity, our Spray Snail...

...this activity ended up looking like this...

...so colourful!

We also had another fun activity, using squirt bottle paints on big snail forms. They were pretty fun, and ended up looking fabulous!

Some other cool, but slightly random things that we did at the end of camp were these - check it!

and...the mixing bin!!! It grows real grass!!! Just add kids and water!

I feel so lucky that I was able to work with the kids and educators at Play and Learn - I learned so much and felt so good, and it got me really thinking about playgrounds and outdoor classrooms and learning and ...well, the list just goes on and on. It was super-duper.

What a summer - first being up in Inukjuak, remember that? Look here, and work your back if you don't remember. Then Snail Trails. Jam packed goodness.

Then, when Snail Trails Camp ended, I got to go on holidays! The greatest holiday ever of my life so far. First I was in Nova Scotia with my parents, and then all the way across the country to B.C. visiting friends and family there. I came home feeling soooooooooooo relaxed and recharged, and psyched for school.


And so here I am and here it is - just a quick little look at my summer. More real soon, cuz I want to show you this amazing playground we found in Victoria.

Nerd out!!