Thumbs Up and Thumbs down on ideas about the wind.

We're learning about wind and it was a wind-less day today.  But the kids spent time using their newly made fans, blowing around leaves and trying to blow rocks.  During circle time we discussed how we thought different things in the woods would behave if we blew on them.  Teaching the idea of "thumbs up for yes and thumbs down for no" we hypothesized that tree stumps would not move, spider webs would move with our wind and leaves would also.  Someone wondered if the fur on an animal would move-so we were off to go find out!

We first went to Lily the goat.  She was standing right next to the fence so we could blow on her fur a bit and it did move.  We proved that point!  Next on our hike we stopped to "feed" the "Talking Tree" and also tried to "blow it over".  Impossible!  Thumbs down with blowing over a tree stump.

We blew on a fern and its leaves moved.  So did the spider web and lichen.  We also watched the lichen scurry down the stream-weaving in and out of the rocks along with the current.

When we stopped on the way back to watch the horse in the sun with steam escaping from his nostrils, we all tried making steam from our mouths.  Oh yes-it was still cold out.  We could all see our breath!

Next time we get together we are going to pretend to be tornadoes by spinning around fast!  I wonder how many of us will get dizzy from it!

Tiny Treks Outdoor Preschool having fun

We began the Tiny Treks day learning about wind and making our own fans.  We had fun seeing what things we could "blow" with the fans: some straw but not the rocks.  Our hair and faces.  The kids enjoyed cooling off Teacher Ann while played the guitar and taught them some of the words to "Blowin in the Wind."

Next it was on to the chicken coop.  I had found some chicken feed from when I kept chickens at my house-so I brought it in for the kids to throw for the chickens.  The chickens were very excited about this treat and so were the kids.  We even got to help gather eggs from the nesting boxes.  There were 13 eggs today!



Soon it was time for snack.  We headed over to the fire pit and scrambled up onto the new big logs that ring the fire pit.  We didn't have a fire but we enjoyed our snack and stories.  We read a book that had true and false questions about weather.  The kids really knew their stuff about weather!  Then we also read a story about Chinese New Years and learned all about the Lion and Dragon puppets.  We all thought they were pretty cool and maybe a little scary too!

 

 

After a rousing game of hide and seek in the woods we spent lots of time making and baking along the stream.  This is a northwest version of mud pies.  Instead of mud we used rocks and sand to make hot chocolate, ice cream, smoothies, strawberries and rocky road ice cream.  There was also some cake baking going on too.  The kids played in the stream for a long time-interacting with each other and using their wonderful imaginations.

Tummies began rumbling and it was time for lunch.  During lunch we read more stories and I also played more songs on the guitar.  It was a good day at Keep It Simple Farms with Tiny treks!

Learning about rain and water

Water play is fun any day of the year.  At Tiny Treks I often carry in my backpack some kind of cups or bowls.  When I get them out the kids just begin to fill them.  It might be with stones or dirt or leaves or water.  But they always are eager to fill them up.  I think this is like the story of giving your child an expensive toy and what they are most excited about is the box.  So all I need is the outdoors, a stream and some plastic bowls and I've got kids excited to fill up the bowls, water the plants along the side of the stream or throw the water back into the stream and watch it splash.  This week the water play went on for a long time.  So long that one of the kids said-"Teacher Ann-Its time to hike!" So then, I interrupted the play of the other kids so we could continue exploring.  But it lasted a good long time.

Tiny Treks Outdoor Preschool has a certain place along the trail that it loves at Keep It Simple Farms.  There is an area where the trees are all deciduous and easy to climb on and around.  The kids have games that they play every time they arrive.  Here is one of the trekkers "driving a car" on the tree.  "Beep Beep!"

During January we are learning about weather-so we got to have fun with shaving cream, water and eye droppers full of blue food coloring.  The idea was to add blue water to the "clouds" of shaving cream to see how much water a cloud could accept before it "rained".  The kids were very intent, watching the shaving cream fill up with the blue food coloring and then raining down into the jar.  We all had fun cleaning up as well!

Next week we are learning about the wind.  I'm looking forward to using straws and fans to teach how wind moves things around.

Shake those fall leaves!

Tiny Treks Outdoor Preschool Class enjoyed sitting on a carpet of red maple leaves for circle time today. We sang the "5 Little Pumpkins" song with the fun of counting real baby pumpkins and jumped up and down with our pumpkin shakers to sing "Shake your sillies out". The shakers made lots of noise and made the kids laugh and giggle!

 

On our trip into the woods today the sun was shining through the turning leaves on the deciduous trees that abound at Keep It Simple Farm.  With the leaves hanging tenuously onto the branches-it only took a quick shake to make them float to the forest floor.  We ran from tree to tree shaking and getting the trees to give up their last leaves.  We learned if a tree has a green trunk it is probably a young tree-and shakable.  A tree without green on the trunk is probably too big to move-even though we all tried really hard!

Thank you to farmer Leon for making a big pile of leaves for us to jump into! We also held the new baby chicks in the office and petted the kittens! What a big day!

PS We have space for 2 children 3-5 years of age for Tiny Treks Outdoor Preschool right now.
Also-registration for winter will begin November 15th for January/February/March 2014.  Please tell your friends about the class!  We hope to offer Monday - Wednesday - Friday in 2014 as well!

Black garden slugs and banana slugs and leopard slugs oh my!

Banana slug with tentacles and a foot!

Teacher Roo took over our outdoor preschool class today because I, Teacher Ann, was home with the flu.   We are thankful to have Teacher Nicki as a back up today.  Teacher Nicki comes to us with a wealth of knowledge inside and outside of the classroom.  As a trained zoologist she has outdoor experience and as an elementary school teacher in England she has classroom experience. I hope to be back in tip-top shape next week!

Today we learned more about slugs.  Slugs have skirts!  Did you know that?  And a foot! and optic tentacles!  There is lots to learn about slugs.  Of course as chance would have it-we couldn't find any slugs on our hike.  We found some very little ones hiding under some leaves but the big black garden slugs  or local  banana slugs or leopard slugs were not to be seen.

Silly Slug book.

.Next week we'll be talking about farms and farm animals.  It will be fun to learn more about what they do at Keep It Simple Farm.

Friendships in Nature

Forging new friendships on the trail.

 This week at Keep It Simple Farm, Tiny Treks was exploring and learning more about the great outdoors. Every child was given their own spray bottle full of water and off we went in search of spider webs to highlight with water.  The kids were able to spot webs quickly after last week's search.  The kids are beginning to forge new friendships and to feel comfortable playing with each other.

It must be autumn-look at those leaves!

   

We hunted in the woods for spiders but since it was so wet, pretty soon we were finding slugs instead.  We'll learn more about slugs next week-but we were able to investigate how they move.  We even had a slug book to have fun reading!

Tiny Treks strives to teach according to what is happening in the natural world at any time.  When we looked closely at the super tall sunflowers one of the children noticed that the yellow petals were all gone.  Then we observed the smaller sunflowers-one of which had a bumblebee attached to it.  A dead bumblebee in fact.  I wonder if it will still be there next week?

We didn't forget to have fun playing in the hay stacks.  What a cool hideout?  I heard some magical stories playing out inside-while others just enjoyed coming out the back "window!"

What fun in the haystacks!

Rainy Day Slug is a fun book to read.

Who is that on the sunflower?

Itsy Bitsy and Big Enormous Spiders!

Spraying a sheet web to make it stand out with water.

In the northwest the fall is full of spiders.  There are spider webs across walkways and under plants.  We learned about spiders today at Tiny Treks Outdoor Preschool.  We learned that spiders have 8 legs and two parts to their bodies-the abdomen and cephalathorax.  We sang "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and other funny versions like the "Eentsy Weentsy Spider" (make a tiny spider with the tips of your fingers and a very small, high voice) and the "Big Enormous Spider" (make big motions with your arms and claws for huge spiders with a very loud, low voice.)  Everyone was laughing at our funny songs.

Making new friends on our hike.

After spending some time with the chickens and rabbits at the farm we headed into the forest with sprayers in tow.  We had sprayers to spray water on the spider webs we found.  Putting water on the webs helps to make them easier to see.  Now-you might think this was a lesson on spiders.  Or webs. Or even a lesson on hiking and how to be safe in the woods.  Well, it was all of those but mostly it was a lesson in sharing.

Just having fun spraying!

As  a teacher, I know that preschoolers can have a hard time sharing.  Especially if the preschooler is still in their threes.  So I brought 5 sprayers thinking that there would be enough for every other child.  But 2 of the sprayers I bought were missing the straw part of the sprayer so they weren't going to work.  Quickly this became a lesson in sharing that was a bit more challenging. So I set up a system where after a child had a chance to spray a web I would loudly say "share" and then the sprayer had to go to the next student.  This was a very difficult lesson for some of the kids.  Other children were happy to share and pass along the sprayer. Clearly we will all be working on sharing every week!

We saw some impressive orb webs on our walk and got to watch some big spiders. We also found some sheet webs.  We'll keep looking for spiders and their webs this fall-until it gets too cold for spiders!

See you next Wednesday!

There was even a big web on the hay bales!

Lucky Tiny Treks to have a sunny lunch time!