The Environment as a Teacher: Gutters & Water

We recently added some new loose parts to the Outdoor Classroom: GUTTERS! I set up the gutters on the yard as shown, but we gave no specific instruction on how to use them. 

Our Pre-K students noticed the gutters right away and began pouring the water down the gutters and into a bucket. 

As the water spilled over and flowed into the hole, the students realized they could make a river. With enthusiasm, they grabbed small shovels from the crates and requested our "real" tool shovel so they could make trenches and rivers in the sandbox. 

They worked cooperatively for approximately 30 minutes with barely a word from the teachers. As the children dug their trenches, connecting several holes that had been built by multiple children, and as they watched water flow through the sandbox, I took a moment to reflect on the capability of children to create knowledge from their environment. In the 30 minutes they spent on this project, they learned about force, flow of water, angles, absorption, and so much more. Could we possibly have taught them all of that in circle time? I think not.

The well designed environment IS a remarkable teacher in and of itself. Don't you think?

Increasing Focus Through Loose Parts (and Tires in the OC)

Teachers are always so eager to engage children and stimulate them with new learning opportunities. We offer activities that span all of the developmental areas, we diligently change out the toys on a weekly basis, and we spend hours planning for the next set of creative activities. Monday morning comes, and the room has been transformed with new offerings for the children to explore. Of course, a well-planned, intentional and creative teacher is a good thing. However, is there a point to which our good intentions of setting out endless amounts of "engaging" activities becomes too much? By offering new toys every week are we in fact limiting their creativity and causing children to flit from one activity to another without being able to engage and focus on one activity/object for extended periods?Are we preventing them from deeply understanding and developing complexity in their play? I am not opposed to change. I love to challenge the children with new activities and I believe children enjoy exploring new materials. They also gain new skills when they are exposed to new experiences. However, I also believe that maintaining a base of familiar experiences (such as blocks, ramps & pathways, and dramatic play) and providing open-ended loose parts is critical to promoting focus, attention, developed complex thinking strategies, imagination, and creativity.

The concept of "loose parts" is not new. Children have been collecting, sorting, manipulating, moving, toting, building, and creating with loose parts for generations. Remember back to your days of playing in the woods. I'm sure you can muster some fond memories of using logs, rocks, pinecones, and other natural objects to create forts, mud kitchens, magic wands, secret treasures and more. Throughout childhood, I'm sure we have all magically "transformed" even manmade items to suit our play. Milk jugs became space ships, paper towel rolls became swords, and brooms became horses.  Items such as these are considered "loose parts." Undefined loose parts can become any object that the child can dream or imagine because they have no definitive element. For example, a plastic pile of spaghetti almost always stays a plastic pile of spaghetti. But a pinecone can become spaghetti, a rocket ship, or a magical fairy-tale carriage.  The creativity of the young mind never ceases to amaze me! Providing loose parts on the playground (and in the classroom) is a way to stimulate creativity, promote discovery, and spark curiosity among children. Loose parts provide a valuable open-ended learning resource.

Our school has a bounty of old tires laying around the playground. The children have endless uses for the tires. To be honest, I found them rather unsightly when I first started working at the school. But perhaps that is because I didn't see that the tires were really boats, ships, construction holes, and crawling tubes!

I hope you enjoy seeing how our children transform these simple objects and work them into their play! As I've shown in some of the photos, when the tires are not used for play, the teachers use them for functional purposes!

This boy drives his truck through a construction blockade made of tires.

These tires divide the sports area from the bike path.

This tire holds the tarp AND the paint!

Tires are often used to hold down tarps. We also cover our tables and furniture with tarps at night. The tires hold the tarps for extra protection!

The children have filled these tires with sand. 

Our younger pod used the tires in an obstacle course.

The boys feel like they are doing army drills!

Cooking over the "tire" (heehee...pun intended!)

These tires have become an outdoor oven.

Tires make great planters!

The 3's teacher set up these tires by digging them into the sand. Each class has enjoyed this immensely! They have kept this structure in place for over a week!

Climbing over the tires provides great gross motor skills. Balance is key!

This 2 year old is singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"

A few of his friends joined in the fun to sing as they cruised down the "river."

I stole one tire to keep the hose in place.

PS - If you have spiders where you live, be sure to paint the inside of the tires white. Since spiders prefer dark spaces, the white color deters them from taking residence!

Nature Deficit? Not Here!

I've mentioned in past posts how I've been trying to add a greater emphasis on natural elements in our yard. We've added bins and buckets filled with pinecones, hay, large tree cookies, small tree cookies, shiny stones, logs, stumps and more.
Today my heart nearly skipped a joyful beat. As I was walking through the yard during nap time, a special something caught my eye. There, in the middle of the sandbox, was this ornate little sand castle. The castle was adorned with rocks, leaves, pinecones, and even one large tree cookie. The children obviously took great pride in their work because their masterpiece was surrounded by protective cones from the bike area. This little piece took concentration, effort and collaboration. It was a beautiful sight to behold!

Nature deficit disorder? Nope...not here!

A Few Storage Tips and Tricks

I really enjoyed Jenny's blog (Let the Children Play) this week about creative ways to store loose parts in the Outdoor Classroom. I wanted to piggy back on her post because I LOVE to learn about creative ways to organize the environment. 

There were so many great ideas on her post. She was kind enough to feature my idea about using milk crates for outdoor storage (to get directly to the post, click here). Milk crates are a wonderful "loose part" in themselves, but they are also a terrific way to store shovels, buckets, natural items, pvc pipes, mud kitchen materials, and more. They can be hosed down, the sand falls through, and they can be easily labeled. We have several classrooms ages 2 - 5 who use the same playground, so labeling is essential for us.  Each class in our school is asked to "reset" the Outdoor Classroom (ie - clean it up!) before the next class comes out to enjoy the yard. 

Another great storage trick we have is our 3 bin sensory/water tables. These tables were custom made and hold 3 removable utility bins. They are very simple and wouldn't take much to recreate. When we are using playdough, we put cafeteria trays over the bins to create a flat and elevated surface on which to roll and mould the dough. We store the tools in the middle bin. When it is time to clean up, we pop the playdough in a bag, and everything goes under the trays. 

Take note and look UNDER this table...the tires and tarp are for overnight storage. We lay the tarp on the table and hold it down with tires. The tires are also used as "loose parts" in our Outdoor Classroom.

When we are playing with water, goop, ooblek, etc., we take off the trays and put it straight in the bins. 

This table is EXTREMELY versatile!

Our outdoor "Quiet Corner" is an old bathtub! We've stacked blankets inside so the children don't have to sit too low into the tub and lined the top with pillows to make it extra soft. The books are stored in a simple woven basket. This is a covered area, so we do not do anything to protect it overnight or on weekends.

Use baggies to keep make clean-up a breeze!

I have worked in education for years and have always dreaded cleaning up the paint jars. When I started my role at this preschool, I was so impressed to see their idea for creative cleanup...line the jars with ziplock bags! Not overly environmental, but we do keep the same liners for a week since they don't tend to dry out. We store the jars in a caddy in the shed overnight. We wash the brushes and tops as needed.

Our 2's teacher used cafeteria trays and lined the tables with towels for their cornstarch and water sensory experience (click here for the ooblek recipe and the science behind it; and if you haven't tried it, you MUST!!!!). It was a neat change from the traditional method of using a bin. She provided colored water in recycled applesauce containers, spoons, and cups of cornstarch for the children to explore. 

When our 3's teacher was planting flowers in pots, she lined the ground with a tarp and put the dirt in utility bins (we have as many of these bins as we do milk crates!!!). She provided child sized gardening tools and she let the children do the potting. When the project was complete, we rolled up the tarp and dumped the contents over our raised garden beds. 

Since we received WAY too many Pansies this season, I had each child plant a Pansy in a cup to take home. I used the same tarp and bin method, but we sat at a table since we were on the patio.

This is one of our "diorama" tables. They were also custom made by the same person who made our other sensory boxes. Again, these tables would be VERY simple to build. To make this sensory box, we lined the table with a tarp (for easier cleanup), and then poured in cornmeal, rice and beans.

This is the same table in use during our "dino dig." To the left, you can see our other diorama table which we used for the "science lab" area.  

We also use these tables for Duplo, Lego, tree blocks, doll houses...you name it!

Tarps and tires cover pretty much everything that needs to be protected at night. In the morning, set up is quick and easy as I just have to fold the tarps and toss the tires to the side. Remember, tires are a fantastic loose part, so they are part of the children's play environment.

I hope you found these tips useful. Please feel free to add your own clever ideas!

Finding Fall, Part 2

If you read Finding Fall Pt. 1, you'd remember that I recently went to a ranch to purchase an abundance of squash, gourds, pumpkins, and corn stalks. We displayed our horn of plenty in the lobby for several days, but today it was time to let the children play! Our fabulous group of teachers got together during nap time and we spent the afternoon transforming our Outdoor Classroom into an Autumn festival of sorts.

First, we scattered hay and set the GIANT pumpkin to perch for the season. We then set out all of the other squash, gourds and pumpkins for the children to explore. A far cry from "display only,"we encourage the children to tote, carry, push, pull and explore the bounty. Consider the items "loose parts" that can be used in every form of their play (well, as long as they are not purposefully damaging the items). We have provided wheelbarrows, pots, pans, and a wagon to encourage their interactions with the new items. They are also encouraged to use the pint-sized rakes to help rake the hay back into our planters!

In the above sensory bin, we mixed cornmeal, beans, and Fall colored rice. We added dried gourds (complete with dried seeds to rattle), some unusual pumpkins, pinecones, spoons and small cups. This is a very "natural" bin and encourages children to explore the patterns and textures that nature provides. To stimulate some scientific observations, I also plan on adding a sensory bin filled with moist dirt, dried beans and small shovels to the yard. My hope is that the beans will sprout over the course of the week and the children will be able to discover and investigate the growing seeds. I can't wait to hear them chatter about why the beans in the dirt sprouted, but the beans in the cornmeal did not. 

The dramatic play area became a Western Cowboy Cookout. We provided lanterns, western clothes, cowboy hats, cowboy books, aluminum pots and pans, play food, a picnic table, and a bale of hay on which to sit. We try to carry this theme for several weeks, so, as time goes on we will probably put in a few more items to add interest...a "campfire" with roasting sticks, a farmer's market, a tent, books about cowboys, and more. 

I do love a great dramatic play area, but I do sometimes feel that we limit the children's creativity by providing items such as realistic play food. When we give the children plastic spaghetti, it can only be spaghetti. Whereas, if we provide more natural items (pinecones, sticks, rocks, etc), the items can transform into anything the children would like them to be. So, to offer an alternative to our more "structured" dramatic play, we have a "mud-kitchen" playhouse in the sandbox where we offer the children a selection of natural and open-ended play material.

 Do you have any great Autumn ideas or photos for the Outdoor Classroom? I'd love to hear them in your comments! Feel free to link to your blog.

Finding Fall, Part 1

I live in Southern California, so Autumn comes rather slowly around here. In fact, I haven't seen one red, yellow or orange leaf as of yet. Sigh. Thankfully, the director of my school is completely smitten with the season. So, rather than waiting for Fall to find us, we headed 50 miles out to find IT!

 

I spent my childhood up north, where Fall was one of the most spectacular seasons of the year. This being my first year in California, I was beyond excited to see what the pumpkin patches in SoCal had to offer. The director and I drove out to Lombardi Ranch on a mission to find every kind of gourd, pumpkin, corn, and winter vegetable you could think of. And to say the least, it was a sight to behold!

 We filled 3 wagons with the largest, most colorful, and most unshapely types of squash we could find.

 We toted mini pumpkins, dried gourds, and Indian corn. We also purchased 7 bunches of freshly cut corn stalks, complete with several silky ears of corn and several bales of hay.

The highlight of the purchase was the two GIANT pumpkins we found. We filled the entire van before heading back to school with our treasures of Autumn.

We put our treasures on display in the lobby for a few days; but soon they will enter the yard to be truly enjoyed by the children. We will place the hay bales around the yard. Some will be spread out as ground cover for the mighty pumpkins and some will be for climbing. We will tie the corn stalks to the poles in the sandbox and around the trees to make our own cornfield. And of course, we will leave out the large gourds, pumpkins and squash for the children to tote around, sit on, and carry in the wheelbarrow. "Loose Parts" and "Nature" at their finest!

We found Fall!