What’s a day at the Academy look like? While we don’t specifically follow the Ontario Curriculum, have a look below to see examples of how immersing children in the material can supplement and enrich their learning in a way that can mirror the strands of the provincial science curriculum! 

In the forest:

• Choose a spot in the forest as your own and visit it to witness the interactions between others that call that place home and observe the changes that take place week to week (Life Systems)

• Play Trail-walk bingo on a nature walk, and then make food chains and webs out of the plants and animals you spotted on your bingo card (Matter and Energy)

• Collect materials from the forest and use them to construct boats, then take them on a trail walk to a pond to test their buoyancy (Structures and Mechanisms)

• Make your own map of the forest and the farm, learn how to use a compass to find your way when lost, and how to use map and compass together to get to where you want to go (Earth and Space Systems)

On the Farm:

• Learn the basic needs of our animals through hands on experience with feeding and watering, then spend time with a specific animal to investigate where they live, and how they interact and are dependant upon the rest of their environment. (Life Systems)

• Take turns milking a cow, see how cream separates from the milk over time, and then make butter out of the cream! (Matter and Energy)

• Help build and maintain shelters, structures and fences on the farm, learning to use real tools and techniques properly under direct supervision (Structures and Mechanisms)

• Experience the changing of the seasons as each one brings new opportunities to explore around the farm: baby animals and planting in the spring, pressing flowers in the summer, harvesting vegetables in the fall, each week will bring new variety to day-to-day life (Earth and Space Systems)