Outside Every Day

“First the snow pants… then the snow boots… then the jacket… then the hat.  And, then last we put on mittens… so we can go outside and play.”

This little ditty, sung to the tune of Oh My Darlin’ Clementine, is a stalwart CCNS favorite. The process of gearing up to go outside on cold, New England winter days can be daunting for a preschooler, but this catchy tune is a helpful prompt that exemplifies a few things about the CCNS approach:

Independence… Zipping coats, buckling boots, and sliding all five fingers into a glove correctly can be challenging tasks, especially for eager three year olds itching to get outside and play. This musical mnemonic is easy to remember and guides the children in the most logical order of how to put on their outdoor clothes. We work on being able to independently suit up to go outside, which gives CCNS kids a sense of accomplishment and, as any parent who’s taken children skiing will tell you, is absolutely priceless.

 

‘Be prepared’...  Like the Boy Scout motto, these children are prepared for whatever their outdoor time may bring. They know that, with the proper outdoor gear, they will be able to take another sledding run, shovel a bigger pile of snow, or be able to ‘frost’ their messy, mud pie masterpiece. When your fingers are warm and your clothes are dry, you can keep going. CCNS kids wear snow pants in winter, rubber pants for wet and muddy days, and always have a few changes of clothes in their cubby, just in case fun = really messy that day.

 

We (always) go outside.  Neither snow nor sleet nor rain nor mud nor ice nor slush will deter these kids from the freedom and imagination they gain from outside play. As long as the temperature is 22° or above, we play outside. Some days, we tweak the schedule to catch the sun or avoid a rain shower and that change in plans is entirely worth it – seeing the children exploring their environment, developing an appreciation for nature, and using their muscles to run, swing, jump, pedal, and hop is a key component of the CCNS experience.

And on days when it’s -22°?   We simply bring the snow inside!

Constructing a Project of Study in the 4’s

One of the most exciting things about each new class, and something that sets CCNS apart, is how the wonderings of a diverse group of children develop into the year’s first Project Approach study. During the first weeks of school, the children interact with a wide range of stimulus and provocations. We observe, question, tweak and expand what’s on offer, looking for a common interest that sparks the children’s curiosity.

This Fall, the children were busy building structures in the block center and lining up for the workbench– perennially popular activities in the CCNS Fours. But this group seemed especially engaged when working with toy construction tools, playing with construction vehicles and building structures with loose parts on the playground. They were asking questions about how things are built and were especially curious about the tools, materials, jobs, sites and vehicles involved.

They had questions. They wanted answers. And we… had our first Project: Building & Construction.

As in any Project Approach study, the first task was to develop an investigation plan to explore the topic. The children listed their (many!) questions, and we brainstormed ways to find the answers. Their plan included research using books and videos, inviting “experts’ into the classroom, creating their own construction vehicles and making field site-visits to see construction in progress and construction vehicles at work. We added ways for the children to document their learning and report on their findings. Using the Project Approach like this in our curriculum is so valuable because the topic holds the children’s interest for months, and working through the investigation plan builds real world skills that will be used from elementary school to high school and beyond.

 

Our first field site-visit was to a construction site to interview an expert in the field. The children were very excited to be able to ask their questions and see some of the equipment that they had been reading about in action. We took photographs and made field sketches to help with our research and document our experience. On our second field site-visit, we saw the inside of a building being built, a tree being chopped down and chipped, a stump being ground and several different lawn mowers and trucks. The highlights of the trip were receiving our very own hard hat (to keep!) and actually using the controls of an excavator to scoop dirt and bring it to a dump truck!

 

On our final field site-visit, we learned all about the process of making concrete from Devine Brothers. We saw several vehicles up close, and our class was even featured on News12 Connecticut talking about this study and our visit.

Thanks to all the construction experts who created such amazing hands-on experiences that the children will be talking about for years. And what a testament to our amazing CCNS community that two of the three field visits were organized by CCNS dads who do not even have a child in this current Fours class!

Once the Construction Project was underway, the children enjoyed new stimulus that was added to the classroom for free-play exploration- construction vehicles, cones, signs, pipes and connectors in the block area plus pulleys and levers to explore our budding engineering skills. There was a moon sand construction site in the sensory table and foam blocks being mortared together with shaving foam at the art table.

 

With all this talk about building, the children wanted to build something themselves. They were able to make stepping stones from one of the ingredients in concrete: cement. The kids enjoyed watching the cement go from a powder, to a liquid and then to a solid as it cured. They decorated the stones with mosaic tiles and created an individual keepsake of their learning that was, literally, set in stone.

And no construction vehicle captured the children’s attention more than the excavator, so naturally they wanted to make one. Initially, the kids asked to make small excavators out of clay. They learned several clay techniques, and it was amazing to see the fine details that so many of the children represented in their pieces.

Finally the children used their research and field site-visit photos to build a big excavator together. It was incredibly realistic, with moving parts, and the children voted to paint it to match the one they actually operated on their field site-visit.

 

The kids further documented this Project by creating a class alphabet book using their research and photographs from their trips. Finally, family and friends were invited into the classroom to learn more about building and tour the celebration of our construction project work.

We thoroughly enjoyed this Project – and the best part was building the children’s confidence and pride in their deep knowledge of all things “building and construction”!

“You’ve Got Mail”… Pen pals and friendly notes in the Fours.

Discovering a card or personal letter among the usual stack of bills and promotional mailings is often an unexpected treat. Like adults, many children enjoy receiving personalized messages meant just for them. Two activities have given the Fours that personalized letter ‘buzz’ lately:

  • exchanging letters with their preschool pen pals, and
  • exchanging notes, cards and drawings with their classmates and teachers.

Pen Pals:  Bonding over gardening and flowers  

When the Fours class learned that Imagine Nation Early Learning Center in Bristol, CT is also working on a gardening project of study this year, they paired up with the preschool classes there to become pen pals. The CCNS children initiated a communication exchange and were rewarded when their new pen pals reciprocated with a long letter describing the Flower Project they are working on.

Last week, the CCNS children collaborated to write a letter to their partner classes describing their year-long gardening project. Together, the children chose the information and pictures they wanted to share with their new buddies and, with the help of their teachers, dictated an informative and interesting note to their pen pals.

This pen pal exchange is a fun way to help develop the children’s communication skills and their ability to describe something that is important to them as well as to generate excitement and momentum around their ongoing project of study.

Friendly Notes: Mailbox flags are up in the Fours.     

The mini-mail boxes attached to the children’s cubbies have been chock-full lately, as the Fours have been busy writing and receiving notes and cards to/from their classmates and teaches. After gathering some simple supplies like paper, pencils, pens, markers and crayons into a writing station and adding a little encouragement, the children quickly brought their creativity and imagination into the mix.  It’s exciting for the kids to look across the room as they are playing and see their mailbox flag up.  “I have mail!” can be heard happily expressed as the children rush over to open their message!

This activity is always available in the classroom and note-writing is an excellent way for preschoolers to practice and improve their writing and reading skills, build connections and friendships with their peers, and to encourage thoughtfulness and kindness. Writing notes to their family and friends is a great way to bring writing and reading practice home!

Monochromatic Nevelson Assemblages… say that three times fast!

In the Threes, we recently found artistic inspiration in the work of Louise Nevelson, an American sculptor known for her monumental monochromatic wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. She lived in New York City and would collect junk like old furniture and off cuts of wood which she would use to create her sculptures. She called her sculptures “assemblages”.

To begin our project, we collected recyclables and interesting ‘junk’ which included differently-sized boxes, cardboard tubes, plastic containers, corks, lids, wooden shapes, jig-saw pieces and even an old hairbrush!

Each child started their project with a cereal box. One side had been removed to create a container for their sculpture. The children carefully selected the “junk” pieces they wanted to use and began to position them within the box. We watched a short YouTube video which showed an artist putting together an ‘assemblage’ and then talked about how the artist had tried putting objects in different places until she found the layout she liked best. Once we decided on our final design, teachers helped the children secure their creations with a hot glue gun.

We learned that Louise Nevelson’s assemblages were monochromatic, or just one color, and we decided to mirror her style by painting ours entirely with black acrylic paint.

The final step was to group the children’s individual sculptures together to create a collaborative work of art, which is currently on display in the Threes classroom.  Take a look!

painting our assemblages
joining pieces together
our collaborative mural
a Nevelson – our inspiration!

Making Faces in the Threes

We’ve been “making faces” in the Threes, which is a fun way to help children at this age identify and discover more about how their eyes, noses and mouths work.

We started by talking about what features you might find on a face. We looked at our faces in the mirror and identified things that are largely the same on all our faces (like noses, ears, lips, and eyebrows) and things that are different (like eye color, hair color and hair type). On our easel, we created faces using shape magnets, and we used play dough to form the features of a face, then talked about our choices.  We all agreed that “circles work best for eyes!”

We next read the book  “Let’s Make Faces” by Hancock Priven and used a range of materials and loose parts to create faces.  And then we looked at Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s famous “Four Seasons” paintings, in which he created faces made up of fruit, vegetables, flowers and plants, and we created our own faces inspired by his art work.

You might have some fun making faces with your child at home – I hear you can do a lot with a pancake and some berries!

Playing (and learning) in the snow!

When the children arrived at school last Monday, they were incredibly excited to see our playground covered in snow!  They had read Willow and The Snow Day Dance by Denise Brennan Nelson on Friday, and all went home to follow the book’s directions on how to make it snow… so they felt some ownership of the winter scene that greeted them.

Normally in the Fours, we begin our day outside for about 30 minutes, but this day we stayed out for well over an hour and a half.  It was a beautiful day, and because we go outside every single day, our students are well-trained to dress properly for rain, cold or snow.

It was not until the children started to need the bathroom or to feel hungry that we felt the need to go inside.  At CCNS, we have the flexibility to vary our schedules based on the needs of the children as well as exciting events that might occur – and what could be more exciting than the first snowfall of the season?!

Were we “just playing” for an hour and a half at the expense of our scheduled activities inside?

Absolutely.  But, we were also…

  • discovering the physics of creating sledding paths in deep powder.  Why weren’t we going fast? Why wasn’t it slippery? How did this change as more children came down the path?  Why were some starting to go faster than others? 
  • practicing the negotiation and problem-solving involved with sled turn-taking.
  • finding ice in various shapes and thicknesses all over the playground.  What is inside this ice?  What happens when I drop it?
  • stirring, mixing and packing snow in our outdoor kitchen; creating recipes while learning about the properties of snow and how they can be changed.
  • exercising and strengthening our bodies as we climbed the big hill over and over again, trudged through the thick snow or tried to push our way down slides packed heavy with snow.
  • excitedly and descriptively articulating our discoveries to our teachers and each other.

And, importantly, we were enjoying the beauty of nature, breathing the fresh air and experiencing how highly our CCNS parents and teachers value being outside and having time to explore.

We have a wonderful, large outdoor classroom at CCNS that is ever-changing… from falling leaves or a new snowfall, to a new raised garden bed built by the Fours, to the playground redesign in the works that will add new natural features to make this incredible space even more inviting for extended play and discovery.

Giving children the opportunity to spend more time in nature has garnered a good deal of press recently, and a strong body of research stresses the importance of this kind of experience for children.  It is reassuring to know that the children of CCNS are already benefiting from a rich, natural environment and from a learning community that values this important play.

Dana M. Gorman

Educational Director

 

To read a few recent articles on the value of outdoor play and learning, click here, here or here!