Fall Garden

I like to think of the garden area as a space for marveling at nature- watching the butterflies land on the passionflower vine, rubbing the leaves of lemon verbena, enjoying the mystery of finding new plants peeking out from the soil- sugar snaps, chard, nasturtium.

  

Aside from planting and marveling at plants, there are many other things we do in the garden:

Building forts

Climbing, Wheelbarrow rides

Today, the kids dug for bones around the gardens.  This was sparked by our singing a version of the song, "Dem Bones" ("Toe bone's connected to the foot bone...").  

Digging for treasure/bones

Being that Halloween is just around the corner,  I drew a skeleton on the sidewalk while we were in the gardens and the kids interested in writing helped me label/spell the body parts.  And then the kids ran off to dig for bones!  They used found objects (white shells, etc.) to represent the bones.  They dug and searched for a long, long time.  

Here's a link to the version of the song we sang (actually omitted some of the movements).  Now, if you really want to hear a good version of the song, more in tune with the original, and with New Orleans style brass, etc. click here.  It's interesting to me how much the song has been adapted.  I didn't hear the original version with references to the Bible until now (Ezekiel, word of the Lord).  I always thought the song was merely about human anatomy.  From Wikipedia, here's more info about the origins of the song and the meaning of the lyrics.

Snapshots from Indoors

The Shape of Our Days

A couple of months have passed since we started playschool, and we have all settled into a bit of a rhythm (I know, I know, it's bound to change now that I've uttered the words).  In the past week or so, I have been setting up stations outside for the kids to explore if and when they are interested: art table, work bench, science center.  Inside in the play/classroom, I've been putting a simple machine on one of the tables for the kids to explore.  If anyone knows what this one is designed for, please email me!  It grinds oats quite nicely:

Anyway, setting up outdoor activities at each station has been working really nicely because the kids spend a good half hour playing around outside, waking up and burning energy, and then they mosey over to see what's happening on the porch.  At the work table/bench, a challenge is posted each day (can you build a super fast ramp for race cars?) for the kids to work on at the work table (and sometimes the challenge sparks an idea that they want to follow).  At the art table, there is messy fun like this to be had:

I love that you can see the progression of the marble paintings in the photos above and below.

Some kids are lured away by other interesting things, and some kids stay a while.  

The ones that stayed with this particular project really seemed to get into testing their specific technique.

His technique led into a hockey game.

Work in the gardens tends to happen after lunch.  Right now we are planting strawberry plants and nasturtium and chard seeds.  We also have some really beautifully curved (and forked) sycamore branches for building.  This is a beautiful creation the kids made together the other day:

Nest

And this is one of my beautiful creations:

I love this photo (and this boy)!

Lovely Fall

Preparing Community Snack

Costumes:  Every day is Halloween

Mud Pie Kitchen

Building

In the gardens...

Decorating the nest