Showing posts with label outside. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 2

Brown, Bear what do you see outside activity

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We read "Brown Bear, brown bear what do you see?"

All of the Eric Carle books have great repetition and pictures making them classic preschool books.

When we went outside to play I thought we could play a little, eye-spy game using the same repitition of brown bear, brown bear.

It goes like this,"Ava Bear, Ava Bear, What do you see?"

Ava: "I see a big tree looking at me."

Class: We all look for the tree she is talking about, "Is it this one?" Yes!

Teacher: "Carl Bear, Carl Bear, What do you see?"

Carl: " I see a snow patch, looking at me."

I repeated this until everyone had a turn and they all wanted 2 or 3 turns! It was a big hit!

Wednesday, December 22

Winter Solstice Skiing

Posted in outside,winter | | by

When we get this kind of snow at our house....

It beckons us to go up into the mountains....

And have a day of skiing.

At Alta resort they do "ski for free after 3" and you can see quite a few parents taking their child(ren) out on the mountain to enjoy this deal. Maybe towards the end of this season we will see if River is ready for that adventure. For the time being he just stays on the rope tow!

Going somewhat fast!

Pizza, pizza!

So grown up!

I think he was trying to stop.

It may be a little hard to see the sun, in this photo, but it was beautiful. I loved being in the mountains enjoying winter solstice outside with my family.

It was great to be able to enjoy the day with the shortest amount of light of the year, outdoors playing.

Wednesday, October 27

First snow of fall

Posted in fall,outside | | by

This morning we had a nice blanket of snow, the first snow of fall. When we went outside to play around 11:30am there wasn't too much left and you could hear all the water falling down from the trees.

Rue stood in that spot for a few minutes before deciding to play in the snow.

At this point she is thinking...hmm maybe it will be ok to touch the snow.

River loved tramping through the wet snow with his rain boots!

"Look at this snowball Mom!"

Nothing like some fresh snow...yum, yum.

After River ate some little Rue decided that it might be a good idea to have some too!

Maple leaf

I love the contrasting colors in this photo.

In the driveway there was a really long, fat worm. Probably one of the longest fattest worms I have seen in a long time. It took River a few attempts to scoop up the worm.

This chicken sure enjoyed it!

Friday, October 22

Spider Hunt

Posted in outside,spider | | by

We have been talking about the letter S this week for spiders snakes. So a hunt for spiders and webs was inevitable especially since we read:

by Doreen Cronin pictures by Harry Bliss

All the adventurers wanted to find a daddy long legs after reading it. Sadly we weren't able to find one, one adventurer said, "I'm glad we didn't see one because it is SO big and might eat us."

This is my favorite spider web pic. We found this web inside an open circle cement post.

The first spider sighting.

I think this is a common garden spider.

This pic makes the spider look bigger than it really was.

A different angle of the same spider web pictured above.

Spider webs on the old chicken coop not been used.

The inside of the old chicken coop was filled with all

sorts of webs.

It was interesting to watch how some of the adventurers loved the spider hunt and how others never wanted to participate at all.

Growing up in Arizona I remember seeing tarantulas come out after it rained in the spring and summer. I loved watching the large furry legs scutter about on the dirt. I wish my preschoolers could have seen something larger than a daddy long longs crawling outside...but then again only half of them wanted to see the spiders we did find.

Monday, October 18

It's fall...TIME to go OUTSIDE

Posted in fall,outdoor education,outside | | by

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.

Tuesday, October 12

Family traditions

Posted in apples,fall,outside,simplicity parenting,traditions | | by

Family traditions counter alienation and confusion. They help us define who we are; they provide something steady, reliable and safe in a confusing world.

SUSAN LIEBERMAN, New Traditions

When the blossoms on trees turn into large, delicious apples we begin searching for trees in our neighborhood that will make this year's cider party worth coming to. We move often (we haven't lived anywhere longer than 16 months) which makes the hunt for apples really enjoyable since we have never picked apples from the same tree two years in a row.

We began our Sunday search party with 2 strollers filled with children, a step stool, and plenty of bags to put the apples into.

As we find apples that are worth picking, I begin rehearsing my approach line. "Hi, we were just walking by and noticed you had some apples falling down into that empty lot and wondered if we could pick some apples from your tree." Usually folks are pretty happy to let us pick the apples they had no intention of using, that means a few less rotten apples spoiling on the ground for them, and yummy cider for us!

Picking apples can become a greedy and dangerous endeavor. You begin to wonder if you can reach that beautiful, big, non-worm hole, perfect apple hanging just four inches out of your reach. Once you are able to snatch that one off the branch, your eyes spy an even bigger, more beautiful, non-marked apple and you begin devising the plan of how you can get that one off the tree without it falling into the rotten, mushy mess of apples below you.

This is our 4th year we have picked apples from neighborhood trees and have juiced them using the heirloom turquoise Champion juicer my Grandma passed on to me. My son River has always been apart of the process of picking, sorting, and juicing. It was so precious to see him explaining to his younger sister who is 16 months, which apples are good and which ones are bad.

I believe that good traditions, traditions that you want to keep as a family just happen. When we first picked apples four years ago we never thought that this would be a way to gather our friends and family together to celebrate fall, we simply just picked apples. I feel so grateful that we have lived in area that has allowed us to walk in our neighborhood to pick apples from neighbor's trees. As a child I remember reading books about the whole community coming together to harvest apples. I remember the colorful pictures of Papas on ladders picking the apples and Mamas in the kitchen making cider and baking pies. Having a tradition that celebrates the Fall harvest is a way for us to not only feel connected to each other but also to feel connected in the changes of the earth. Traditions bind together Mamas, Papas, Sisters, Brothers, and friends to feel united in purpose and united to each other.

Tuesday, August 31

Otter Pop Art

Posted in art (various techniques),outside | | by

The weather has been changing, so I wanted to make sure we did this activity while it was still a sunny summer day...otter pop art! I know some of you may have seen some Popsicle art activities floating around the blog world but I wanted to try otter pops. This is definitely an OUTSIDE project especially if your 15-month-old will be participating!