Early Childhood Education Newsletter: Enjoy The Outdoors!
Come on outside, the weather
is fine! What better time than springtime to take some of your lessons
outdoors? Whether your children are measuring water or playing shadow tag,
they are using nature’s bounty to help them learn. Encourage children’s
natural senses of wonder and their observation skills -- explore the
outdoors!
Education
World's Early Childhood Education Newsletter, May 24, 2005
ACTIVITY
IDEAS
IS YOUR HEAD IN THE CLOUDS? Read to children The Cloud Book by Tomie DePaola (Holiday House). Take
children outside to observe clouds and use the book to identify the types
they see. Invite children to look for shapes in the clouds and to describe
them. Give each child a piece of construction paper and ask him or her to
draw an outline (at the top of the page) of the shape he or she described.
Have students glue cotton to fit inside the lines of their shapes. At the
bottom of their papers, students can draw themselves looking up at their
clouds and can complete their pictures with sky, grass, birds, trees, and
so on.
TAKE A SNIFF Take children on a walk through a flower garden and ask them to notice
the various scents. During the walk, take time to sit in a grassy place
with closed eyes and just smell. Then ask, “How does the earth smell when
you’re digging in a garden? How does wet sand smell in the sandbox? What
are some pleasant smells? Some unpleasant smells? After the walk, help
children create scent bottles. Fill jars that have lids with layers of
herb leaves, pine needles, and flower petals. Cover the jars tightly and
open at special times to recall the smells of spring.
TREES
ARE TERRIFIC Treat your children to trees! Visit a park or neighborhood to examine
trees. Be sure children notice tree shapes, trunks, leaves, and branches.
Extend the learning by
--- making a graph of tree shapes. Show how many of each type you found.
--- having children make tree trunks from clay. Help them add natural
materials such as bark, twigs, and leaves to complete their creations.
--- offering snack foods that come from trees such as apple slices,
bananas, or orange juice.
--- creating a class “Big Book About Trees.” Let each child illustrate a
page. Include text dictated by that child.
--- exploring trees as habitats. What lives on or in a tree? Let children
use magnifying glasses to examine tree trunks or branches.
--- inviting children to use their bodies to illustrate a tree silhouette
as they listen to music.
SAND
AND SHADOWS Let kids hit the sandbox for some learning fun! Encourage children to
use sand and water to create sand castles. Then tell children to be shadow
watchers. Do the sand castles make shadows? Next, have children create a
forest for their sand castles by gluing paper triangles to sticks. Push
the “trees” into the sand and note their shadows. Look again later in the
day to see if those shadows have changed. Discuss shadows and what is
needed for shadows to appear. Finally, let children trace one another’s
shadows, compare their shadows, or dance to music with their shadows.
YOU ROCK! Set out on a rock hunt and let children collect some rocks. On your
return let children clean their rocks and examine them. Children can then
--- sort rocks by size, color, or shape.
--- examine rocks with a magnifying glass.
--- find out about rocks’ composition by scraping cement with a rock or
scraping two rocks together over black paper.
--- look at picture books of rocks to help identify those that they found.
Let children have fun making homes for their rocks. Offer a variety of
containers such as egg cartons, shoe boxes, or coffee cans. Then invite
children to decorate their containers with fabric, tissue paper, aluminum
foil, ribbon, yarn, and so on. Display children’s “rockin’ creations”!
ON
THE WEB
Check out the following Web sites for more background and activities.
Education
World's Early Childhood Education Newsletter, May 24, 2005
TREES
ARE TERRIFIC
SAND
AND SHADOWS
Feeding
the Birds