Water Play Teaches Concepts of Volume!

 Today was a warm and sunny day.  A perfect day for water play!  The kids learned how to use the water faucet and how to turn it on and off. They carefully filled up buckets and spray bottles and then were ingenious on how to use them. Some kids "painted" the park bench with water and watched how the wood changed colors.  Others created a puddle in a hole in the grass and made potions and "poisons".  Many kids harmlessly sprayed each other and the teachers with spray on our waterproof boots and pants.  There were huge giggles and laughing along with very concentrated carrying of full buckets to their special destination.  The play went on for a whole hour before we interrupted them for snack and stories.  Everyone was engaged in the water play.  Everyone was a bit wet-but no more wet then a regular rainy day in the Northwest!  Pretty soon we were taking off layers and enjoying our stories about frogs and rabbits on the grass.

We expect Thursday to be hotter then today.  Please send your child in a t-shirt underneath whatever layers you choose so we can get down to the lowest layer easily.  Please DO send them in boots-but you do not need waterproof jackets or pants.  It just may be too hot!  ( I don't say that too often!)

Have I mentioned lately all that your children are learning at TOP?  Today we had a special lesson on nettles since they are prolific this time of year.  We learned how to identify them :  Heart shaped with sharks teeth on the outside .  We learned that you can use the underside of a sword fern that has spores to help get the sting out if you get nettles on your skin.  Or you can use the slime from a banana slug to anesthetize your skin.

We also learned about volume.  Filling containers up with water, watching it pour out, water the water go down in the spray bottle.  These actions all teach about volume.

Earth Day at TOP

The sun and the water and sticks.

We celebrated Earth Day at TOP by creating some "earth art" with coffee filters, markers and spray bottles.  Everyone was enthusiastic about the project.  Flora said "Earth!!  My mommy and daddy and grandma and grampa live there!"  We learned 2 songs about the world and will continue to sing them as our new circle time songs.

Reduce Reuse Recycle Song ( sung to the tune of Have you ever seen a lassie)

Reduce Reuse Recycle, recycle recycle

Reduce Reuse Recycle It's easy to do.

Cause your wold is my world, and my world is your world.

Reduce Reuse Recycle It's easy to do.

We've got the whole world, in our hands

We've got the whole world, in our hands

We've got the whole wild world, in our hands

We've got the whole world, in our hands

We've got the whole world, in our hands

We've got the little bitty babies, in our hands

We've got the little bitty babies, in our hands

We've got the little bitty babies, in our hands

We've got the whole world, in our hands

We've got the Outdoor Preschool, in our hands

We've got the Outdoor Preschool, in our hands

We've got the Outdoor Preschool, in our hands

We've got the whole world, in our hands

(then we make up our own verses!)

A new place to climb.

 Hiking on Tuesday was exciting.  Everyone was glad to be back from spring break.  There were lots of changes in the forest.  The water was high and rushing along.  We looked for the owls but didn't see them.  We saw lichen and moss and new fern fronds.  The kids found secret places to climb on top of and scampered up familiar climbing areas.  The sun was shining on the stream in places making it a cool place to  watch how the current changes with sticks.  The sun came out and pretty soon jackets and hats were off and everyone was happy to have lunch in the sunlight.

When the sun came out, we got to have a picnic!