Whiting Lane Elementary School

Since I became a teacher in 1989, I have always used the outdoors as a basis for my lesson objectives. I helped to develop a Children's Forest outside our school where we emphasized 4 different ecosystems - pond, forest, flower garden and vegetable garden to teach children the importance of biodiversity and caring for the earth. My classes created Trail Guides that included poetry and informational writing about different species so that visitors to our forest could learn and meditate on poetry that pertained to the area they were sitting. When I became a library media specialist, I was overjoyed to begin gardening with 6 different grade levels! We coordinated the curriculum so that each grade level was responsible for a different plant. Our program continues to evolve as we are learning about vegetables that are used by different cultures. We have a Nature Festival in the Spring and a Harvest Festival in the fall. Our Mission is: Whiting Lane Living Classroom: Growing Citizens of the Future.