Nature's playground

We had a lot to do today!  We started with shovels in the dirt, both digging and pounding on the many molehills in the field.  During circle time today we learned the Apple Poem.  The Apple Poem has American Sign Language that goes along with it.  Ask your child the sign for apple!

:

Way up high in an apple tree.
Two red apples smiled at me.
I shook that tree as hard as I could.
Down came the apples! Mmmmmm they were good!

Here is a link that shows how to make the sign of the apple!

http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/a/apple.htm

After our circle time we had a fun tour of the farm led by Farmer Linda.

We got to feed Daisy the cow and go into the chicken coop and count the eggs! (there were 5 today)  We heard the donkey hee hawing and began learning the Donkey Song from Teacher Ann.

Then it was time for snack and a bit of a hike.  Teachers Jen and Ann went in different directions with their color groups .  We hike with the kids separately  from time to time in order to help them create bonds and friendships easier.  Teacher Jen is always with the blue group and Teacher Ann leads the yellow group.  The children are changed from group to group every few weeks.

Children in the stream.

Today in the yellow group 2 children were very engaged with playing, holding and observing a worm that Isaac had found.  It was still wiggling when we left it behind so I guess they were gentle enough!  3 boys climbed on a downed tree for a long time and played with hitting it with sticks.  

The children are taught very specific rules about how to play with sticks so that no one gets hurt.  They cannot hike with sticks but can use sticks as long as they are away from other children.  In this case, the 3 boys had short sticks and they were pretending to chop down the tree.  It was a good activity to bond them in imaginary play.

In the blue group they played for a long time in the stream.  Then they hiked to the "elephant tree" and found new ways to climb on it.  There was a lot of imaginary play going on with them as well!

 At the end of the day we fit in apple prints.  We are happy to use paint while the weather permits-aka is sunny! 

What a great day!  Please use this blog to engage your child in conversations about what he or she did today.  This will help reinforce their learning.

A muggy day on the farm...

Kids stomping in the mud.

We started the second day at TOP with new buckets and old shovels. The kids dug into dirt, mole hills and around the foot of a big tree.  Kids made dirt hills and castles, found an earwig and flying ants and lots of spiderwebs on the tree bark. Some of the children were playing together, building and digging.  Other kids were pretending to be baby fawns and lying on the grass.  Teacher Jen and I could see that some of the kids were working on adjusting to a new school and adventure.
Both teachers got lots of hugs and love today.  Kids wanted to hold the teacher's hand as we hiked.  Some needed a bit of reassurance, yet there were no tears saying goodbye or any little voices asking when mom would be there.
After our digging we hiked over to an apple tree in the horse pasture.  The horses weren't in the pasture but they were next door.  We used the big apple picker to get each child an apple for snack.  Some chose to eat the apple, some to take it home and some lost interest.  But they did get to learn about apples from our book choice at snack time.
Before we started hiking the kids wanted to take some time at the tireswing.  There were exclamantions for "higher, higher" and some kids just wanted to dig in the rocks. 
There were a few minutes left to hike through the woods back for lunch. 

Teacher Jen and I are so happy with how well the children are adjusting to school.  Many are beginning to get each other's names and to share their play.  Expect your child to be tired upon pick up.  I heard a few voices today that "my legs are tired".  We will extend the hiking as the children get stronger.  By the end of last year we could hike quite a ways without any complaints.  But we will break the kids in slowly.

Kids looking at a fish.



What an incredible first day we had!  The kids practiced walking in a line like ducks and sitting in a circle while we waited for everyone to arrive and made sure that all of the papers were turned in.  We will get quicker starts once all of the paper work is in!

We began our circle time singing the TOP song.  The kids from last year helped the new kids by doing the motions and singing along.  I'm sure they will all know the words before long!

Then we walked to one of our favorite playing spots with a few stops along the way to see the bird nest and big fallen tree again.  We practiced walking in a teacher sandwich along the way.  A teacher sandwich is one teacher in the front and one in the back-the children are the sandwich makings in the middle!  Everyone did very well following the safety rules of TOP!

At our special place we first stopped for a much needed snack and funny story called "Friends".
We talked about all of the new friends they were going to make at TOP.  We had the kids look around at their new classmates and say hi to them! 
After snack and story, the kids climbed the big tree, crawled under it, played horse on the branches and just explored.  Some kids walked through the shallow stream looking for fish and bugs. Theo was able to catch a small fish and shared that experience with many of his classmates.

We were so impressed with the children's abilities to connect with new and old classmates.  Many children were playing imaginative play together.  The kids in the stream were sharing their experiences.  For those children having a harder time working into the group, we will be assigning partners next week so they can get to know one child at a time which helpss to build a friendship.

The Outdoor Preschool begins a New Year, 2011/2012

Teacher Jen and Teacher Ann are so excited to begin a new year of outdoor explorations with our new and returning students. 

Dates to be aware of:

We will be meeting for The Outdoor Preschool orientation on September 13th from 10-11am at Farrel-McWhirter Park. We’ll meet near the flagpole by the small white building.  (the Ops Building)  Please be prompt as there is a lot we want to share with you in a short hour.

First day of school: September 20th. 10am-1230pm.

Everyday:

1.      Please send a healthy lunch and a separate small snack with your child daily.

2.      Please take your child to the potty before school begins

3.      Dress your child for the chilly and rainy weather and in layers in case the sun comes out!

4.     

Please note that we require the students to dress appropriately for The Outdoor Preschool. 

Your child must have waterproof pants, a waterproof jacket, rain boots, mittens or gloves and a hat.  You do not need to send all of these garments to school every day-but please dress your child for the outdoors.  You can find waterproof clothing on line at Oaki Wear for Kids and REI. Our favorite boots are the bogg boots.  They are worth the cost as they keep the feet warm and dry.  (both Jen and I wear them )

Here are some links to appropriate clothing:

http://www.oakiwear.com/oaki/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1

http://www.rei.com/product/786761

http://www.campmor.com/bogs-classic-high-bubbles-handle-kids-boot.shtml?source=CI&srccode=cii_9324560&cpncode=21-158776172-2

This blog will be the main communication between the teachers and you, the parents-other than when there is something we need to discuss about your child.  Please take a look here, each week at what we have done at TOP.  It is a good way to help your child to be able to talk with you about what we did at school.  Plus it is fun to see all of the cute photos!

We look forward to meeting with you on September 13th.  Please bring your filled out medical forms and the "TOP-Tell us about your child" form on orientation day so we can get to know your child before school begins!

See you soon!

Ann and Jen

425-503-6953 for questions

A corn snake and goodbyes till next year!

"Butters" the corn snake

Thank you to Paula, Jennifer and Jana for staying and helping me on the last day.  We had such an exciting time learning all about the Yellow Corn Snake.  I was so proud of our TOP kids!  They all sat and listeded so well to our visitor, Teacher Rhonda, talk about the snake while it slithered around her head and down into her sweatshirt!  Everyone got a chance to touch the snake if they wanted to and were very careful and caring about the animal.  We learned that snakes "smell" by using their tongues and have different scales on the bottom of them than on the top.  We also learned that snakes take off their skin every 2 months or so.  Then, we got to touch a snake skin and found out it was longer than Teacher Ann was tall!  Wow!  Also, we heard about how the snake "Butters", eats a mouse or two every 2 weeks and then has one big, smelly poop!  Thank you Teacher Rhonda for bringing in her snake to show us!

On our hike yesterday we went to some of favorite places one more time.  We walked through the grass that was over our heads, played on the tire swings, looked at the bubbles in the stream from the rain and talked about moss, lichen, nurse logs and the hemlock trees and huckleberry bushes growing on top of them.  We slid down at the "slide" area and played our jumping game at the outdoor classroom.  It was a great last day!

Teachers Jen and I want to thank everyone for the kind words, flowers and lovely cards!  It means so much to us to hear from you and your kids.  We have loved every minute of this past year exploring nature with your children.  Thank you for lending them to us!

"T" is for Tadpoles!

 

Looking at the captured tadpoles in the cups!

Checking out small see through bugs in the dirt with magnifying glasses.

Today we went out to a pond to play in the water and instead found a puddle loaded with tadpoles!  There were so many tadpoles that the water was moving with their black bodies.  We had brought along buckets and cups to play with, so pretty soon we were capturing tadpoles and looking closely at them in the sun.  Some of our tadpoles had back legs on them already-making them 'metamorphs" or "froglets".  Some did not have legs yet.  Many of the kids splashed through the water looking for move tadpoles but we think they were hiding in the mud! At lunch half of the class read about the life cycle of the frog.  We will read the book again on Thursday so everyone can learn about frogs and tadpoles.

Along the way to the pond we stopped and saw the new Juliani Pig  just donated to the farm.  He came up and snuffled us! We also played on one of our favorite "climbing structures."  A bunch of downed trees in the park. 

We are so looking forwrad to showing you many of our favorite places to play in the park on May 31st at 10am.  We will be taking a poll with the kids on Thursday to try and decide which places we will take you to!  Also, don't forget to bring a bag lunch so we can all eat together next Tuesday!

Teachers Ann and Jen

PS Don't forget the great opportunity to send your child to "camp" with Teacher Ann this summer at Farrel-McWhirter.  Tiny Treks is run by Teacher Ann in the summer and school year.  In the summer there are  both drop off camps and parent/child fun nature camps.  These camps are very similar to TOP's preschool program.  You can sign up through  the Redmond Parks and Recreation classes.  Go to "Day Camps" Then "Nature Programs" then find Tiny Treks.  The camps are filling up fast so don't wait too long to sign up!

Chalk on rocks and photo retrospective.

Our make-believe Elephant Tree!

Jumping from the tree game the kids made up and play each time we go there!

Kids in the nest they made-pretending to be baby birds.

I have included in this blog some retrospective photos from the whole year.  Look for more year-long photos to come in the last 2 weeks!

We had a really fun unplanned activity today- Teacher Jen had some rocks and let the kids color them with chalk and then wash them off with water.  We did this after lunch with rocks we found in the covered area (We had the chalk out for our snake craft).  Next week we plan to keep some chalk in my backpack to let the kids color and wash rocks in the river.

Today we had the kids carry their water bottles on our hike since it was so warm - they did great. Next week we plan on having the kids carry their lunch boxes a little way into the woods and so we can picnic there.

Teacher Jen and Ann can't believe we only have 4 more classes left.  What a fantastic year it has been.  TOP is a huge success! Don't forget the TOP picnic on May 31st.  Plan to stay the whole class!