Snow Day

Nothing beats that first snowy day of the year: the crunch of snow underneath your boots, the taste of snowflakes. Did you know that a snowy day is just about perfect for your children to enjoy time in their outdoor classroom? Nancy Fusco Castaldo, author of The Little Hands Nature Book, has some fantastic suggestions for winter fun. For example, take your kids outside to your outdoor classroom. As you begin walking, ask them to look around the path. What is different in the winter than in summer? How do the seasons change where you live? Then, have a winter scavenger hunt: “Look for things such as a bush with red berries, a pinecone, a bird, an icicle, a fir tree, animal tracks, and a squirrel. Look for something beautiful” (p.136).

Another fun game is called “snowflake snooping.” All you need for this game is a dark piece of fabric or paper (allow it to chill outside for a few minutes) and a hand lens (or, just borrow a magnifier from your nature center). First, collect falling snow on the fabric or paper. Then examine the snowflakes with your hand lens. Are they all the same? Look at all the different shapes. How many sides does each snowflake have? Watch the snowflakes melt. How do their shapes change?

Finally, you could also mix some water and food coloring, pour it into a spray bottle, and encourage the children to “color” the snow! Not only is this fun, but you could also share a conversation with the children about mixing colors and creating new hues.

Have fun, and enjoying kicking up some snow! I think I’m going to build a snowman now….

Happy New Year!

Can you believe that it is already 2011? Time sure does fly by. I hope you had a fun and safe New Year’s Eve celebration. Between singing “Auld Lang Syne” and toasting with my family to 2011, I started thinking about my New Year resolutions. When I got back to work this week, I asked my pals at The Adventurous Child what our collective resolutions ought to be. Here is what we came up with:

10. Learn more about child development
9. Interview a local professor about early childhood education
8. Research how basic elements such as sand can be educational
7. Be prepared with a list of fun winter activities for the next snowy day
6. Come up with a list of springtime activities
5. Make a compost pile
4. Learn how to go “green” in our outdoor classroom
3. Read one book every month for “fun” in our literacy gazebo
2. Learn about “whole language”
1. Have fun!!!

As I continue to write these entries, hopefully you will see some of my resolutions come to life in the blog. If not… well, please remind me!

What are your resolutions for 2011? This could be a great conversation to share with your children!

Hiking

Early November is a great time to take your children for a hike. Whether you actually take them into the woods or around your playground, they will enjoy being outdoors during the seasonal transition. Now is the time to kick up some leaves and talk about the cooler temperatures. Ask them how the air feels on their skin, what colors they see, and what season follows autumn.

Some of the fun things you can do with children outdoors right now include*:
· Engaging them in discussions about animals and plants that are going through autumnal changes
· Ask them whether the lighting is different (this works especially well if you take them outside at the same time every day)
· Bring a notebook to use as a nature journal for written descriptions or pictures
· Bring a recorder to capture the sounds of the day
· Bring several baggies and a black permanent marker to give your children practice with sorting. Collect seeds, nuts, pinecones, rocks, and leaves and place them in the labeled bags.


At the end of your hike, whether it lasts 15 minutes or an hour, you can sit down at your literacy gazebo and write and draw about your experiences. Children will be excited to talk about everything they saw, smelled, felt, and heard… while tasting some nice apple cider (our favorite autumn treat).

* (Thanks to Renee Carver for these fantastic tips!)

ASSESSMENT IS… COMPREHENSIVE (Part 3 of 3)

The Adventurous Child understands that when it comes to learning, you need a lot of choices for kids.

Having an outdoor Nature and Science Learning Center is a fantastic way to encourage different types of learning, and by proxy, will lend itself to different types of assessment. Some of the activities child will be able to accomplish and enjoy include:

· Use the magnifying glass to observe small objects and describe them by journaling
· Draw pictures and scribble to generate and express ideas
· Use new vocabulary picked up from these experiences (“soil,” “insects”)
· Grow plants from seeds in the garden box
· Observe and then sketch the root system of a plant using the root garden

An example of this can be found at The Adventurous Child’s page on nature and science.

ASSESSMENT IS… COMPREHENSIVE (Part 2 of 3)

Research indicates that people learn in different ways (Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer, & Bjork, 2008). Some prefer instructional manuals, others need auditory coaching, and still others require hands-on training. If this is true for children, then it’s only fair that their instructors and care providers assess them in different ways as well. Outdoor classrooms can provide new opportunities for learning and for assessing during planned and free choice playtime.

The Adventurous Child is committed to outdoor learning environments and products that promote developmental milestones for children ages six months to six years through evidence-based principles of play. Whether your kids are learning the letters of the alphabet or how to connect words to sounds on the literacy gazebo, or they are dropping a ball through the tracking panel to learn about speed and observe different shapes, our outdoor play equipment encourage many different types of learning!

“Can children learn more about the weather by discussing it outdoors each day?”

Weather is an abstract concept when discussed from the confines of an indoor classroom. Outdoors weather can be a concrete learning experience that provides interaction with all of a child’s senses. A child can hear the wind, feel the wind, and see trees swaying in the wind. Air actually has a smell just before it rains, while rain affects all senses.

Items needed to create a great outdoor preschool weather station might include: thermometer, rain gauge, barometer, weather vane, and a place to record the weather at different times of the day. Each day at the end of outdoor play time, use the weather learning center as a transition point before going inside. Discuss the temperature, is it cloudy or sunny, will it rain based on the barometer, etc. The Adventurous Child web site has a great list of Early Learning Standards that pertain to the weather.

Please send me your ideas or questions on creating an outdoor classroom for preschool children.

“What do we want children to gain on the preschool playground? Are these the same things they gain outdoors?”

Yes, in many ways the goals of what we want children to learn in the outdoor classroom are the same as the inside classroom. The Adventurous Child would like to see children develop socially, emotionally, cognitively, physically, etc. in outdoor settings where there is nature and movement all around.


One important area of the preschool curriculum is providing social experiences which create cooperation and parallel play. Having quiet gathering areas like a willow hut, a playhouse, or a store front puts children in situations where they interact with each other. These learning centers really come alive with the buzzing of busy children when manipulatives are provided. The playhouse can have dress up clothes for social and dramatic play. Fake money to buy and sell things also provides manipulatives. A willow hut can have pots and pans for cooking a group’s favorite mud stew with meat sticks. Bits of grass can be used for anything.


When choosing manipulatives to create social interaction, pick items that help you meet your state’s Early Learning Standards. If you want to know more about something specific please feel free to comment or to contact me.

“What do we want children to gain from the outdoor learning environment?”

The easy way to create an outdoor classroom is to mimic how we look at indoor classrooms outside. At the beginning of each school year when buying equipment for our classrooms and setting up the space, we do not ask what children will like, but rather we ask, what do our children need to gain from their time with us? For the playground we should do the same things: not ask if children like slides, decks, and tunnels, but ask “What do we want them to gain from these outdoor experiences?” The Adventurous Child recommends that just like the indoor classroom, there should be many different learning centers that meet your state’s Early Learning Standards. As with the indoor classroom, manipulatives and free choice should abound. Each week, this blog will discuss concrete ideas and ways to determine what children can gain outdoors and specific ideas of what you can do outdoors. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to comment or to contact me!