Our Second Week Exploring Outside

We started our second week outside by making different shelters. The students enjoyed helping to put up the shelters. This was the first experience for some students to go in a tent. The children enjoyed going in and out of the different shelters.

On our second day, we chose our class deciduous tree. The students compared our class deciduous tree to our class evergreen tree.

They noticed that the bark on the class deciduous tree wasn't sticky and that it had green and yellow leaves instead of "spikes." 

We found on the ground some "flat bananas" and wonder if they came from our tree.

The students also noticed "soft and fluffy green stuff" on the tree. The students didn't think it was good for the tree and tried to clean the tree. 

We are wondering what type of tree it is. 

During the second half of our time outside, it started to rain. Many students were dressed for the rain. We were pleasantly surprised that none of the students were upset to be out in the rain. 

On our third day we went on a scavenger hunt to look for various items in nature. We found that the scavenger hunt encouraged the students to look closely and to notice things that didn't notice before. 

The children found a wonderful natural shelter!

The students also found interesting markings on a tree. Some students think that a snake made these markings. 

The staff added a kitchen and a collection of long sticks to our outdoor classroom this week. We discussed how to safely use the long sticks. During the last two days of this week, the children used loose parts and their imagination in the kitchen, investigated how to build with the sticks and logs, and explored the shelters.

We found that some students interacted more with their classmates and engaged in more imaginative play when they were in our outdoor classroom than when they were in our indoor classroom.