We had a fantastic time out in the forest today. Using an egg carton, we each made our own "Nature Collection." The forest has never been so focused! We waded into the stream, mucked about in the mud, gathered brittle fallen leaves, and had so much fun making our numbers. What a beautiful warm Autumnal day to practice math concepts outside!
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The year is off to a wonderful start. We have a room full of eager learners and nature adventurers this year. In our early education program here at Hatfield Elementary, we are working as a team to encourage our students to enjoy learning, to communicate their thinking, and to respond with kindness. Our Outdoor Learning program is also underway, bringing students into the forest to play, count, write, and explore. I hope to post many moments this year using our classroom blog. These moments are worthy of being saved, remembered, and revisited for this year's families, as well as future kindergarten families. Thank you for all you do each day for your children. Go outside and play!
Spring is here and our Outdoor Classroom is growing momentum every week. Our learners went on an epic Letter Egg Hunt today! We each chose a letter, then worked very hard to track down our matching letter in hidden eggs throughout the school's front field. As the weather shifts to warmer days, we are enjoying longer amounts of free play in nature and engaging in longer learning activities outside. Earlier this school year, our early education team visited a school in Vermont that has a weekly Forest Kindergarten. One teacher commented how her students always seemed to find their way to the edges of the recess yard now that they play in the woods together. I've watched our group through the year and enjoyed seeing a similar phenomenon. Our learners were found at the outskirts of our playground a couple weeks ago, noting that the field puddles were covered in ice and using stones to plunk through the thinner edges of the frozen surface. Later in the afternoon, we were back out for our end of the day recess. The same students were delighted to find the ice had melted. We discussed what changed during the day in order for the ice to have changed to water...a conversation that relates so directly to our study of States of Matter. Here are some of my favorite pictures from today's letter hunt adventure!Today we found three sets of animal tracks in our Outdoor Classroom. We are using a very special field guide, "Naturally Curious," to find out what birds, animals, and evidence we can find as we explore our natural world. Here are a few pictures from our first SNOWY day out of doors!Outdoor LearningThe early education team at Hatfield is excited at the prospect of integrating the outdoors into more weekly learning. After the holiday break we'll be sending more information to families about what we hope this looks like for our Kindergarten. This last week we took a simple walk, pretended to "forage" for our snack, ate outside, found a "sit spot" where we took a few minutes by ourselves to notice anything in our environment, shared one word about our experience, and ended the expedition with a little chant, "fox, chipmunk, bear!"
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Mrs. AndersenKindergarten teacher, Mom, musician, robot aficionado, and milkweed enthusiast. Archives
March 2018
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