Wednesday

Today was still windy, but also nice and sunny. We set up nature stations. We took a box and filled it with leaves. Then one with walnuts, one with pine cones, one with rocks, one with various plants and then collected various logs, sticks and twigs and bark. We compared and contrasted, smelled, touched, turned over, and investigated. I went through each station with the kids and modeled how to explore our findings and gave encouragement. Then I let free time happen. I wondered if they would run straight towards the toys or stay with the nature stations. They stayed at the nature stations! This is a part of my outdoor classroom that I am creating for an early childhood education class "Children and Nature". Doing some modeling and giving ideas for investigating nature and inspiring curiosity is great, but its even more important to then let the children have unstructured play time amongst nature. We learn about our colors (orange leaves and pumpkins for example) and opposites (large branches and small twigs), shapes (oval rocks), but mostly a general appreciation for the "earth" by starting with our own backyards. We discover "wooly bear" caterpillars, which just happen to be orange and black and after observing it for awhile, we put them in the tall grass (so they don't get trampled by the giants a.ka. us). We also had a slug visitor while at our nature stations. What  a great way to spend a windy Wednesday!