Nature Paintings

The other week we took a short nature walk.  We pushed our small wooden doll carriage along with us and filled it with all sorts of natural items we found along our walk.  We found twigs, large sticks, twigs with leaves attached, leaves, acorns, rocks and even bark from a tree. (it had fallen off the tree)

When we came back to the classroom we literally just dumped our collection into the empty sensory table to explore.  Several days later one of the little guys in my room brought some leaves inside from the playground and asked to put them "in".  Of course, those leaves were plopped inside the sensory table as well.

The children explored these items a bit, but weren't thrilled with them (I think they may have found them 'out of place' in the classroom).  Over the weekend, I grabbed some tiny pumpkins and gourds to add to the table. 

We decided it was high time we explore painting with our Autumn items.  We pulled out the pumpkins, the gourds, the leaves (some that were by now, quite dry) some twigs with leaves attached, rocks and acorns.

We added orange, red and yellow  paint in shallow containers and began to explore.  The adults modeled how to make pumpkin "prints" by holding the tiny pumpkins by the stem and dipping them in paint. 

We explored dipping leaves and acorns in paint and swirling and tapping them on the paper.  We spent time exploring each object and how it interacted with the paint.  Later we may add some of our colored glue to stick items down.  We may also decide to use paintbrushes to actually paint directly on the pumpkins!  But, for now, we explored using these items as paintbrushes themselves!

We'll be off on another nature adventure later this week.  I can't wait!  Oh, did I tell you.  We found a snake on our first walk!  We were quite excited, though it was too fast to take a picture of!

This blog post is linked to the blog hop on Rainbows Within Reach! 

The Colors of Nature

I made nature color packets today!  I gained inspiration for this idea this from Deborah's Forest Treasure Box at Teach Preschool. I really liked this idea; but just wanted to use the items we find while we're outside, rather than making up a box. I also didn't want to have to go around our outdoor area picking up small paint chip cards all over the place! :)

Here was my solution:  I started by finding paint chip cards in many different shades of browns, yellows, oranges, greens and whites, sorted them into color packets (I did combine the yellows and oranges since there were fewer) and sequenced them from darkest to lightest. I then punched holes in each at the bottom and used a brad (paper fastener) to attach each group of cards so we can fan them out and see all the shades and seperate colors! 
 

I think I will just pop these in our outdoor backpack to take outside with us! This way I can just use them informally with the children while we are outside and while they are interested. I think these will be a good way to introduce the children to looking more closely at natural items they find while outside! We can use these to find the color of a rock, the color of the grass they are sitting on or the color of the tree trunk. 

This will also be a good way to begin to introduce the idea of shades of color. Most natural items may fall somewhere in between the colors on the paint chips. Mentioning that an item is a bit darker or lighter is a way to introduce the children to the concept that natural items are generally not simply..."yellow" or "brown"...they may be dark brown or light brown or somewhere in between!

I'm also excited to introduce the children to the wonderful names of some of the colors on the cards! I think it's much more exciting to call the color of a tree trunk "Toasted Sesame"...or "Afternoon Tea" rather than...brown!

**On a side note:  I have no idea why I thought of using paint chip cards for this idea...and when I was making my color matching file folder game....I DIDN'T think of using them! Check out Debbie's comment on my color matching file folder game. She's absolutely right!  Use paint chips rather than your color printer ink!

Better Late then Never!

Among all of the things I worked to complete these last few weeks, I also intended to participate with the children in International Mud Day.  I managed many things over the past few weeks...but, exploring mud was not one of them!
 My goal was and still IS to create our mud pie kitchen!  For now, though, I am collapsing from exhaustion at my house!   Thankfully, I have a month to recover...and relax!

Since we didn't get a chance to participate in International Mud Day (which, by the way, would have been great fun!) I thought I'd share the blog hop!   Just look at all the ways OTHER people celebrated International Mud Day!   (OUR celebration will just have to wait until August!  Well, one good thing...I now have tons of creative ideas to start from!)

This blog hop was set up by Jaime at Hands On As We Grow!

Our "Sand-Pie Kitchen"! :)

I realized the other day that I have fallen hopelessly behind on writing anything at all on our outdoor learning!  This isn't because we haven't added new items to our space.  It isn't because we haven't gone outside!  It's simply a matter of managing a camera and numerous small hands holding on to mine...a clipboard, keys and a first aide backpack!

Well, I did it people!  I balanced all of those things and am here to tell about it!  Today was the first day we added our "Sand-Pie kitchen" :)  We decided since it has been raining a great deal of the time here, we would take advantage of the wonderful wet, packed sand in the sand pit!  

 We simply added a few small frying pans, a few cake and pie tins, some wooden bowls,  some tree cookies as the burners and baskets filled with rocks and other natural objects!  We have a bench that sits next to our sand pit, so this became the stove top!

 The children didn't need any prompting to begin scooping and filling the tins and pans with wet sand, packing it down and then adding "toppings" like stones to the top of the pies and cakes!

While some of us were busy cooking and baking in the kitchen, several children were busy looking for bugs in the wood chips.  The children love overturning the tree stumps and digging through the wood chips and dirt to see what is beneath! 

Of course, they were successful!  Here is the poor "pet" caterpillar (really an inchworm, I think) that was lovingly carried around for a good 20 minutes before he was "lost" in the wood chips again!  (I'm sure he was thankful for this!)

Another exciting discovery today was the children's discovery that our bean plants that we thought had died, have not died at all!  The children called us all over to show us that they found full size BEANS on the plants!  We were as surprised as the children were over this discovery!

(Thanks to Meaghan L. for the photos used in this post, as mine seem to be lost forever on my camera phone!)

"Bagel Bird and Squirrel Feeders"

OH, we had so much fun today!  We took a 35 minute ('round trip' :) walk around the neighborhood near our school and to a small ravine.  We saw a rabbit, lots of squirrels, birds, a cat in a window, animal tracks, ice on the creek and many different trees.

We stopped several times to be very quiet and hear birds.  One time we heard an unusual bird call.  The children speculated that it may be a woodpecker or...a peacock!  The children were pretty sure there was water under the ice on the creek and and were very excited to see the animal tracks on the sidewalk.  They also found a hole in the ground.  They thought it might be a home for ants, a worm, a snake or an elephant!

When we got back to the classroom we printed out the photos we took and laminated them.  We talked to the children about the animals we saw and heard on our walk.  We also talked about how difficult it is for the animals to find food when it is cold outside.

We decided we would help the animals find some food near our school.  We made bagel bird and squirrel feeders.  

The children spread lots of peanut butter on their bagel, then stuck cranberries, popcorn and sunflower seeds to the peanut butter. 

Originally, the idea was to put yarn through the hole in the bagel and hang the bird feeders.  As you can see, the children loved putting on all the items so much that we couldn't see the bagel hole anymore!  So, we decided we would just lay these flat on the ground around the trees for the birds and squirrels.  As one child said,  "My bird is going to have a FEAST!"

When we finished, we had 2 trays filled with bagel bird and squirrel feeders.  HUGE bagel bird and squirrel feeders...piled high with yummy things for birds and squirrels to eat. 

We went to the front of the school and the children put the bagel bird feeders around the trees.  Several children even found a small crevice in one of the trees and decided to put their bagel bird feeders in this.  They thought the squirrels might live in this hole.  Some of the children even called into the hole:  "Squirrel, Squirrel!"  Apparently, they wanted to make sure the squirrels knew that we had left food for them!

We will have to check tomorrow to see if any food is left!