Lifelong activity for PE

[awpoolco]

Hey MapleTeacher,
I too began tapping trees with our 3-5 graders last season. My teaching partner and I have been snowshoeing and x-country skiing for years, as part of our Physical Education program in Hampden. Last year was such a downer for those activities and I am an avid outdoor person, who Taps himself. I decided to give up on waiting for snow and introduce maple sugaring to our kids. We have 18 classrooms, so we gave each classroom a tap and bucket and helped them identify a tree. We had a blast. We charted the progress and gathered as much weather data as we could. We kept track of the production of sap from each tap and were able to make 2.5 gallons of syrup in the end. We use our syrup as an alternative for students on breakfast for lunch days. We will be following you throughout the season. Good luck to you and your students. Our hopes are to expand each year and write a grant for an evaporator, as well as have our high school students build us a sugar shack some day...

Weatherbee School

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

The Region 9 tech school in Mexico has built some sugar shacks as part of their building construction program. Maybe contact them for some ideas.

[Revi]

It's definitely great exercise! I usually lose some weight and get in shape during sugaring season. This last weekend was a good workout for me, slogging in the mashed potato snow with snowshoes on. I think it's a good way to get outside and do some purposeful exercise. And it's a "life sport", done by people of all ages.

[MapleLady]

18 classrooms and 18 taps/buckets -- awesome idea and learning activity for those students! Did you have any concerns with people tampering with your buckets? Did you do anything to make them somewhat tamper-proof? I will be tapping a few trees with my students in the next week or so and the trees are in front of our school. I want to make things as tamper-proof as possible. Any suggestions?

Good luck this year!