Let's pretend we are a pirate famly!

This session we have 4 girls added to our wonderful outdoor preschool. And with the girls comes pretend play. Girls often develop pretend play before boys and with the addition of our girls we now have pretend play back in the woods. There are many reasons experts think that girls are more interested in pretend play and boys in active play. One is that they think girls think of relationships more and boys have their testosterone to keep them moving. Now with a good mix of boys and girls at TOP they will work together-the girls will get the boys interested in pretending and the boys will keep things moving along. Of course-this is can be a gross over generalization of boys and girls. But the girls wanted to play family as pirates. So we are looking forward to a pirate family in our midst!

A new mud pit for the yellow group.

The yellows found a new mud pile today at the park. I thought it would be a quick diversion from our hike-but instead no one wanted to leave until their tummies were rumbling in need of a snack. We had a few slow starters into the mud-but before long everyone was shrieking that they were stuck in the mud and Teacher Ann was pulling on the boots to hear that great sucking sound as the boot came out-hopefully with the foot still in it! We didn't have any socks in the mud or tears-just cries of joy and muddy kids.

 

The kids made up a game of throwing sticks in the foam in the stream.

The blue group had a fantastic time using their senses on our hike today. Across the river, through the mud, up and down hills and right off the trail through the woods to find the yellow group. We started out hiking through the river and squishing in the mud, then it was up a hill, across a bridge and up another very long and big hill. By then we were very tired and stopped for snack and a story in a wooded area just off the trail. After snack we explored and played games in the woods before heading back out on the trail to see if we could use our senses to find and perhaps "scare" the yellow group. We heard some noise and hid very quietly in the woods waiting to jump out and say, "boo" to the yellow group. Luckily, we realized the noise was two horses and riders and we did not scare anyone. Your children all waved and whispered to the horses so as not to startle them. Again, we headed off to find the yellow group. Some hikers wanted to run and other preferred to walk, but they were are fantastic listeners and stopped every time Teacher Jen asked them to do so! Eventually, when it was almost lunch time, we found the yellow group and we all hiked back to the picnic tables together. Your children are making wonderful progress at TOP and we thank you for sharing them with us.