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.

A Good Week for Digging for Worms

I am fast learning that you have to be flexible when your classroom is outdoors. The rain kept us in one day and the next was very wet. Our deck was soaked, so we had to make some adjustments on Wednesday. We decided to put lots of hand shovels out, so kids could dig for worms. The kids loved it! I think digging for worms is our favorite work outside, although they love the farm animals too. Our owners brought some back in, and the children had the opportunity to observe and draw them. This week they got to meet Galileo the goose for the first time. He is big and noisy! He thinks he is the protector of his duck friends, so he did a lot of talking on his visit to the school.

Going on a Bird Hunt

I just love this picture! Some of the kids were checking out the Ohio bird guide. They were picking birds they like and using the binoculars to see if they could spy any. I'm not sure if they were successful in finding any, but they were enjoying themselves!

Indian Corn

We began our Indian Corn Work this week. The children take the kernels off the cob by hand. Another extension of that would be to use tweezers to remove the kernels. Later we will use the corn for another work. I am thinking of having them paint with the cob. The cob might make some pretty cool prints.