March 2024
One morning, Madi took 3 children out for a walk to find some nature items. R picks up a pinecone from the ground, some sticks, rocks, and some dried leaves. When we get back to daycare we set up our items in a tray with some photos of the children on their walk. As the children wake up from their naps they start to come over to the table to see what's there. S comes over to the table and picks up a pinecone, “pineapple!” she says! What an interesting theory…
We all went out again for a walk the next day and added our items to the tray inside when we got back… the children gathered around to investigate. Since the children have identified “pinecones” as “pineapples” we brought in a pineapple in for the children to investigate their theories. They identified it as a “big pineapple” whereas the pinecones are now “little pineapples.” Over the weekend our pineapple got very ripe so the next morning we opened up our pineapples to see what's inside. First we cut off the top of the big pineapple, L grabbed it right away and took a big bite from the stem. She scrunched up her nose and eyes as she sank her teeth in for a bite. Then we cut it in halves for all the children to explore, D sunk his fingers into one of the halves and L went back for seconds. The children began to gather around the table to see what was going on. Since we cut our big pineapple we tried to cut the little ones as well, “what do you see inside?” we ask the children.
Eventually all the children gathered at the table and were requesting pieces of the “big pineapple” or the “papple” as others pronounce it. Once we were done, we put all the rinds in a glass jar for the children to look at. We are excited to see what they will come up with!
Madi Osborne, Educator
Hailee King, RECE
Manpreet Kaur, BSc, BEd, MEd
