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MWF 4 Hour Class

When I’m writing a documentation, one of the hardest things for me is to decide what pictures, stories and reflections I’ll share with you. There are so many joyful, meaningful moments and every day’s learning experiences!

As I was selecting some of the class’ photos I found myself wondering: if we consider the classroom’s environment, the third teacher, what is mother nature’s role in a child’s learning and development?

The exploration of natural environments nurture children’s curiosity and holistic learning as much, or even more, than a classroom. Some of the benefit of connecting children with nature include: supporting creativity and problem solving, increasing physical activity, reducing stress, promoting social emotional development. We see children as innate scientists, artists, builders… full of wonders and curiosity they can nourish and experiment while they are playing in nature.


Exploring the snow 
Olivia tested her movements in designing snow angels. She recognized, that since there was very little snow on the ground her movements needed to be gentle in order to leave a better print.


Paige noticed a hand print among all the food prints on the snow, she wondered how did the hand print end up there. Then, she compared it with her hand and tested if she could leave a print too. One of her discoveries was that her glove was in the wrong hand! She was also able to leave a good print with and without the glove. Did she notice that the print she was about to make with her right hand was supposed to look opposite of the one on the ground?



Our role as ECEs is to offer children experiences and opportunities to play, explore and learn, based in their own interests, and discoveries.
In this case, the snow was just the media we had available outside, but this learning experience might be represented again with paint, water, shaving cream, etc.




                  Continuing their exploration about printing on the snow, the children also tested if the snow was thin enough to write on it.
        Dejah found a stick and decided to test the snow by writing her name.

The following week we were lucky to have a lot more snow! Enough to explore further about the snow’s physical properties by building snowmen, mountains, castles, volcanos and dinosaur’s nests, just to mention some.
We also did some digging, rolling, throwing, catching, tasting and painting too! (Yes, we painted on the snow and mixed some colors too!)

                                       

Linden and the rest of the children had a terrific time painting on the snow, sadly the next class the snow was melted!

Exploring the Sand and Water

Our trip to Garry Point allowed us to keep playing and exploring, this time with sand. We used water and sand for building, digging, carrying, pouring, shoveling… and of course drawing and writing on the sand.


The children tried different objects and sticks to draw. Jovan found one with the right size and thickness that worked for him.


Since we arrived, water seemed very calm. Soon, while we were playing on the sand, a ship passed by. Connor noticed the water started to move forming waves, therefore the children needed to moved away from the water to don’t get wet.
Trying to understand what was happening we had a discussion of their possible theories. Most children agreed that it was the ship what caused the waves, however not all children seemed complete convinced at first. Staying at the beach for a longer time gave us the opportunity to watch this effect happening a few more times… every time a ship or a boat passed by, the waves would form and rush close to our play area. It was interesting to observe the children’s natural learning about cause and effect, and take actions based on it.  Later the children were able to anticipate the waves coming, moving farther from the water as soon as they saw the boat approaching.


We are looking forward to have many more adventures playing in exiting and beautiful natural environments like these! Until next time.

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