On Thursday we took a field trip to pick apples from a neighbor's tree. It was such perfect weather! We had a great time together exploring our neighborhood together. As parents/educators we can become trapped into thinking that children need to always be engaged in highly educational activities, reading only Caldecott Medal and honor books, or tinkering with the latest "Melissa and Doug" toys when really all they need is to PLAY OUTSIDE!
By playing outside we were able to work on large motor skills (jumping, hopping, climbing), science (talking about how an apple becomes an apple tree, and why leaves change colors), math (we counted our apples, the chickens), verbal/linguistic (we sang songs and talked about everything we saw), and well you get the idea.
The adventurers all held onto the rope as we walked around.
Red, yummy apples!
Finding apples on the tree.
We must have all watched this digger for about 20-30 mins picking up asphalt in the scoop and dumping it into the pile.
I was just as enthralled as the kids!
The girls wanted to show us this cool spot... A spot right next to the train tracks where they were doing more construction!
Everyone was waving to the steamroller operator. I felt like
I was a part of one of my childhood favorite books
"Busy Day Busy People".
This is one of my favorite pages from the whole book... the people looking through the holes to see the construction workers busily building. I felt like I was one of those kids popping my head into the hole to watch all the construction workers work!
Everyone decided we should just eat our apple right here,
so we did.
River and Miss M went roaming about still holding onto their bags filled with apples and found chickens.
Not everyone finished their apples so when one child threw their apple to the chickens so did everyone else! As the chickens began pecking on the apples a turkey came staggering out! Not what we were expecting to see.
As we walked back to our little classroom I was so happy to spend time on this wonderful fall day appreciating all the things we were able to see just 2 blocks away from us. I think I am falling in love with this neighborhood we live in and it's only been 5 months! There are not many places where we can see horses, steers, chickens, a turkey, construction workers, and be able to ride our bike to the library, grocery store, 2 parks, costco, target and all the other strip mall stores.
3 comments:
Are those your kids or students? I always wanted to bring my students to interesting nature walks like these. But our school environment have nothing much really. Still, I really love using the nature for lessons!! The best!
I have 5 students plus my 2 children, River, 4-years-old, and Rue 16-months old.
What a fun day! That's what every day would be like if I had my way. And I don't know who Melissa and Doug are, but I can guarantee they've got nothing on Mother Nature.
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