Creek play!

May 15, 2018
2 min read

I was pleasantly surprised when I asked Alexa this morning what the weather outside was. She replied, 72 degrees and a high of 78 degrees. I made sure I had something for M that I didn't care what happened to it. Mrs. Ali emailed and said we would most likely spend the morning in the creek.

We were a little late this morning, but it started off with everyone doodling in their nature journals, followed by story time.

Today she read Jump Frog Jump, one of the moms told us how that was the first book she ever received.

It went a little like this - This is the fish that swam after the frog

that was under the fly

that climbed out of the water

How did the frog get away?

The kids exclaimed "Jump, frog, jump!

There is something comforting about our routine at Nature Play. The parachute, the story, our good morning song.

Our adventure today: To find a watershed!

Immediately, A found a source of run-off/ storm drain (she may have been a part of pre-planning).

We walked across the park to Camp Creek - the kids almost instantly became engaged in collecting sand and water in their containers. Mrs. Ali placed a tarp and showed when it rains, that it sends the sand and the dirt down into the river. Some of the kids may have used it as a slip and slide!

Instead of forcing focus on the watershed lesson, we followed the children back into the water! I enjoyed the unstructured day and I hope that there are more of them!

Mrs. Ali went on to explain her observation of what each child was doing: Mrs. Ali said of the children scooping water and O squeezing the water bottle were all working on specific pre-writing skills.

The two littles that were climbing the embankment were building core strength- needed for tasks like sitting in a chair. For an unstructured day and "just playing in the water" they were really accomplishing a lot!

"Rain, Rain Go Away

Come Again Another Day

Little _____(insert childs name) wants to play

Rain, Rain Go Away..."

M has been singing this on and off, for most of the afternoon.

It was time to go, as everyone was sandy and muddy and we all needed to get cleaned up!