New Yard

Blog: Take 2

Last year at this time my kindergartners were making mud pies in our schoolyard. A few days after this picture was taken we received the devastating news that we needed to move from our beloved school. We survived and even thrived under the circumstances. Now a year later we are more than half way through a new school year in a new school with a new schoolyard. I loved our schoolyard before, but we are blessed with our new space. There is more room to play and learn and even a beautiful view of French Creek.

Water in a Solid State

As luck would have it, just as we were studying the different states of matter, we had a snowy icy day to explore water in a solid state. The kids found an icy wonderland of ice covered plants, logs, and trees. A few days later we brought in some of that snow and ice in a muffin tin and placed it over heated water in a crock pot creating our own water cycle.

Fall Fun

We had some fall fun in the outdoor classroom this past week. We brought in hay bales to climb on, which the kids loved! We also filled our sand table with dried corn and buckeyes to scoop. We sorted buckeyes and acorns as well.

Kindergarten in the Schoolyard

Part of the extended day for the kindergartners is spent outside playing counting games and working on special projects and lessons. The children have been jumping over jump ropes counting to 100 and counting by 5's and 10's playing clapping games. The kids love it! One of our kids laid down three jump ropes and started counting by 3's!
We also learned about the forces of pushing and pulling while cleaning up the yard. The kids were put on two teams, one pulling a wagon and the other pushing the wheel barrow. The children filled them up with leaves and tallied each time they dumped their load of leaves.

Enjoying Some Nice Weather

We took advantage of the nice weather at the end of our week. The kids brought their snacks outside and had a little picnic in the yard. We also got out pumpkin tossing, which is a fall time favorite at our school. My mother in law crocheted these pumpkins a while back. They are really soft and great for tossing. The children also enjoyed our new leaf matching work. I found these beautiful wooden matching cards on etsy.com from thewhimsytree shop.