This month, we will celebrate Autism Awareness Day, National Library Week, World Art Day, Earth Day, and Arbor Day with our incredible students; enjoying the great outdoors, inclusive children’s books, and our own unique brains!
If you haven’t signed up for our after-school programs for April 2025, now is the time to do so! Simply click the button below to register!
Interested to see what we have planned for the month? Read on to see a list of exciting events and activities we’ll be hosting or participating in all month!
| Autism Awareness Day & International Children’s Book Day Wednesday, April 2nd, is a fun double-whammy with Autism Awareness Day and International Children’s Book Day! As some of our staff and students are autistic, we regularly have discussions about neurodivergence and how autism can impact different people differently. For Autism Awareness Day, we’ll take extra special time to delve deeper into the topic, and loop in International Children’s Book Day by reading children’s books which talk about autism. Students are also welcome to bring in their favorite children’s book to share with everyone! |
| No-School Day for 4/4 Friday, April 4th, is a Grading Day for Portland Public Schools. As such, the schools will be closed to give teachers extra time to complete their important work. POE is here to help the kiddos make it through the day! We’ll be starting off a month filled with art, literature, and nature with a day of dress-up, food, and reading. Students are encouraged (but not required) to dress as their favorite fantasy character, or as a character of their own creation. Costumes and dramatic-play props will be available for those interested. We’ll enjoy a smorgasbord of fantasy-style charcuterie, bardcore versions of our favorite songs, D&D, LARP sword battles, and read-a-louds of beloved fantasy tales such as King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Robin Hood, Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit. Register your student(s) today by clicking the button below! |
| No-School Day for 4/7 Monday, April 7th, is a Professional Development Day for Portland Public School teachers. That means another no-school day for students and another all-day camp for Portland Outdoor Explorers – BUT WITH A TWIST! Because 4/7/25 is part of the start of National Library Week, we’ll be taking an exciting field trip to the Midland Library located at 805 SE 122nd Ave. Students are encouraged to bring their library card and an extra tote if they feel like their backpacks won’t be big enough for their borrowed books. We’ll spend the day reading and discussing why libraries are so important for communities. We will board the POEmobile around 9:30am for our field trip. Register your student(s) today by clicking the button below! |
| Encourage a Young Writer Day On Thursday, April 10th, we’ll bring out the writer in all of us as we learn the basics of story craft! Students are encouraged to bring a notebook and pen/pencil where they can write ideas for stories, characters, and more. We may discuss The Hero’s Journey what it means to separate the art from the artist, and more! Who knows, we may also end up playing a little D&D to imagine our stories and characters in a different way. |
| Day of Silence Friday, April 11th, is the Day of Silence, where students and allies take a vow of silence to raise awareness about the bullying and harassment faced by LGBTQ+ students, aiming to highlight the experience of being silenced. Some who participate in observing the Day of Silence wear tape over their mouths, draw Xs on the backs of their hands, or use word cards (flash cards with words written on them) to communicate rather than speak. As a company owned and operated by queer adults, we will be offering students who would like to participate in the Day of Silence some skin-safe tape, markers, and word cards they can create themselves. This is not compulsory. Any students who participate will do so of their own volition. |
| National Donate a Book Day There are several Little Lending Libraries around the neighborhood just waiting to be filled with new books for curious passerby. On Monday, April 14th, we’ll take a walk around the neighborhood, hitting as many of these little libraries as our students have energy and desire for, donating, browsing, and taking books.Last summer, a very generous family donated so, so, SO MANY books to POE! So many, in fact, that we’ve realized we cannot hold onto them all. Students are going to have the opportunity to browse these donated books, decide which ones we, as a small community, would like to keep, and donate the rest to the neighborhood. Students are welcome to donate books from their personal collection, but it is not required. Students may also bring their library totes to help them carry the books they find and would like to take home from the little libraries. |
| World Art Day World Art Day is a celebration to promote the development, diffusion, and enjoyment of art. On Tuesday, April 15th, we’ll create some art of our own while discussing diverse, revolutionary, and important art and artists. This day could get messy! We’ll provide students with smocks in order to help protect their clothes, however, parents are encouraged to dress their student(s) in clothes that are okay to get dirty (just in case). |
| Day of the Mushroom Wednesday, April 16th, is the day of the mushroom. It is a US holiday created to celebrate mushrooms and their health and ecological benefits. On this day, we’ll learn all about funky fungi, focusing primarily on local mushrooms, and how to identify them. While we won’t do any real foraging, we’ll also discuss some of the basics for how to safely forage mushrooms, and do some coloring pages that help us identify the anatomy of a common mushroom. |
| Guardian’s Night Off Friday, April 18th, is our next Guardians’ Night Off! From 6:00pm and 9:00pm, we’ll gather at Rose City Park United Methodist Church for pizza, snacks, games, and a movie. This month, we’ll be showing Hayao Miyazaki’s classic: Howl’s Moving Castle. If your student has any dietary restrictions or sensory concerns, please email us to let us know how we can best accommodate them. |
| Earth Day One of the three ethos Portland Outdoor Explorers values most is stewardship. Specifically, the stewardship of the Earth. At POE, we believe that there is no Planet B. The Portland Outdoor Explorers help educate kids about the environment, permaculture, and (most importantly) how to be active members of their community and work together with others. This Tuesday, April 22nd, we’ll pick up trash, make seed bombs, and discuss other conservation activities and why they are important. |
| Early Release for PPS Wednesday, April 23rd, is an early release day for Portland Public School students. PPS teachers may be done at 11:50am, but the Portland Outdoor Explorers are just getting started. We’ll be enjoying our usual after-school programming in Rose City Park for the long day, ending at our usual time of 6:00pm. |
| Arbor Day Friday, April 25th, is Arbor Day (aka Tree Day). Someday, we’d like to be able to plant a tree as a group, but this year we’ll be learning about the lifecycle of a tree, doing bark rubbings to help identify all the tress in the park (is this a pinecone, fir cone, or spruce cone?) and maybe even hugging some trees! |
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