august 2022
Through ongoing investigations, the children have been exploring nature in various ways. They have done this by exploring flowers and vegetables in our gardens, helping by watering and pruning the plants, picking vegetables and fresh flowers in our outdoor play space and on our community walks to bring back into our environment for further investigations.
The children often engage in scavenger hunts on their own and are observed collecting nature items from around our yard i.e., sticks, leaves, rocks, bark, flowers. To bring the outdoors in, the children collected many natural items from our outdoor environment and from that we created a pressed collage in our big photo frame. To foster this interest and incorporate our community we thought this would be a great way to tie into their natural explorations.
The children pointed at different plants they saw along the walk, the construction happening outside our playground, the “people” and “puppies!” that would walk by saying hello. “Morning” one of the children said. As we walked along the river the children kept their eye out for ducks! We saw FOUR ducks! We began to sing the song “4 little ducks went out one day …” The children joined in singing along to the song. When we reached the Conservatory, the children looked around with wide eyes mesmorised by the sounds, smells, colours and plants. We walked around the conservatory seeing all the colourful plants and objects hidden. The children were particularly fond of the turtle in the water. We brought along our clipboards for the children to do some sketching of what they were seeing.
Natasha Agostino RECE
Jessica Chikoski RECE