“CLAWIOWA” Classroom Without Walls

Wilma Kenny | May 10, 2017

In a well-planned departure from school routine, four Loughborough Public School grades 1-3 classes, their teachers and a variety of parents and community volunteers spent two weeks in Frontenac Park, participating in a “classroom without walls”. The children were divided into two groups, a week apiece, so the whole adventure covered the last of April and the first of May.

Each day followed a theme: people and the land, plants, geology, animals, and reflection on what they were learning. Park Manager Ben Chabot welcomed them to the park, and gave a tour of the facilities. Park ‘Friend’ Jerome McDuff showed and explained the remnants of earlier settlement that remain in the park. The children were given artifacts such as seed planters, kitchen gadgets, muskeg horseshoes and milk pails, to examine, sketch and describe in their journals and guess their use.

Wilma Kenny told stories and showed pictures of roadbuilding crews, modes of travel, schoolhouses and daily life activities of the settlers. Dale Kristensen talked about the botany of the park, and plant adaption to a variety of environments from rocky ridge to swamp. Heather and John Jamieson, both geologists, led a hike to a mica mine, and used a cake with icing to illustrate the layering of limestone over granite. A highlight of Sharry Martin’s description of animal adaptation was the chance to dissect owl pellets. Ed Fletcher and (the other) Heather Jamieson were on hand throughout to take pictures and help explain the artifacts, many of which were on loan from Darryl Silver’s antique shop.

Games, hikes, storybooks, picture-making and quiet times for reflection rounded out the busy days.

Teachers Sharon Isbell, Cara Blais, Andrea Woogh and Debra McMurray deserve much credit for the enormous amount of preparation, planning and effort that made the adventure such a success. Somehow, after all the excitement, work, rain and blackflies, they still had the energy to host a celebratory TGIF for the community volunteers at the end of everything. And, the teachers said, it was not the end at all: the children have carried many ideas, memories and questions back into the classroom where their adventures in learning continue.