It is not half so important to know as to feel when introducing a young child to the natural world. -Rachel Carson

In the past few weeks we teachers have had some discussions re-visiting the value of outdoor play and what it means to us and our program. We keep coming back to the question: What are children getting when they're outside that they don't get anywhere else?

To me, much of the answer is time, space, and freedom. Nearly all of our outdoor play is child-directed; there is no one and nothing telling them what to do or how to do it. While teachers are always available to support and facilitate learning opportunities, children have this time to follow their interests, make their own discoveries, be their authentic selves, and develop a sense of wonder about the natural world. Inside we have to make some restrictions to keep everyone safe; outside there is space for whole-body play, exploration of reasonable risk, and taking on physical challenges that could never be re-created inside (steep ice-covered hill, anyone?). Time outside supports social-emotional development in many ways, too. Children build grit, resilience, and independence by working through reasonable challenges and having the support of teachers who trust that they can do so. It offers many opportunities for collaboration as well as the option to take some time alone. Finally, even for our youngest children, nature provides us with an incredibly rich source of sensory experiences as our outdoor spaces change literally every day. By giving children time and space to notice and explore those changes, we are building foundations of scientific inquiry, focus and persistence, and a sense of environmental stewardship.

Here is a video resource that nicely illustrates how young children learn through their environments, both inside and out: https://www.kinder-4.ch/en/landscape Some of my favorites are "Hands", "Hole", and "Clothes Pegs".

Hope you all have spent some time outside during this beautiful weekend! Thanks for reading.
Megan

News and Reminders:
As you may have noticed, we love taking photos at MVS. We give each child a small 4x6 photo album to keep in their cubby basket that moves up with them through the years; we'll continually add photos to the album so they can have a nice keepsake when they graduate from PreK. If your child's album has made its way home, please bring it back to stay at school. And if you don't think your child has one, let your classroom teacher know.

Also, one of our wonderful families has organized a meal train for Sarah and Nick during their first few weeks with the twins. If you would like to contribute, here is the link: https://mealtrain.com/6g6rkz

Classroom Updates
Infant I
We have had a very pleasant week of slow mornings, lots of wet and muddy play, and many affectionate interactions. Several of our older children have just been giving hugs at every turn, which is very sweet to see. Some exciting physical milestones were reached this week, too: first steps and pushing from being on the belly into a sitting position. Way to go, you two! Sadly it was both Sandra's and Sadie's last week with us; we wish them both well and look forward to spending more time with Carly D.!

Infant II
We have spent the week exploring the playground in new ways! The children have loved playing on the new log in the grass, practicing climbing over it, walking across it, and using it as a long bench when we sing songs together. Early in the week we brought paintbrushes outside and observed how different items changed color when painted with water. At the end of the week, we had a surprise visit from Jacob's Preschool II class! They joined us on the playground and all the kids had fun running around together.

Toddlers
We had a very busy and energetic week with a few children from Infant II visiting and transitioning over. Our class is now a bit younger! This week we have really focused on keeping our hands to ourselves and kind interactions with others. Our art projects continue to be fun and interesting for the children. We've used a lot of paint and chalk this week and tried painting with pipe cleaners, which turned out to be pretty challenging. We then painted rocks with brushes we found on the playground. We are seeing a lot more pretend play lately with sticks, crates, dirt and the babies. We spend a good amount of the day encouraging the children to be more independent: "You can do it!"

Preschool I
Our continued discussion on color led us to a different book for the week: Lunch by Denise Fleming. By Thursday, some of the children had almost memorized the story! The main character, a mouse, ate some new foods that the children worked hard to remember; the "crisp, white turnips" was the trickiest! The children also loved to sniff like the mouse and would stop by the kitchen to sniff their own lunch. We have also observed that the children are much more accurate in naming colors, especially when requesting crayons or colored pencils for working in their journals. We'll be shifting gears next week and start thinking more about shapes.

Preschool II
We had a long list of goals for the week, but we were able to cross all of them off. We went for several adventures including a hike on the Woof Trail and a day at the creek. We also worked on our campfire at Chainsaw Woods, played at the SES playground, and built our very own John Deer tractor out of materials from our play area. We have continued to read Piggy and Elephant books, but we have also enjoyed reading a chapter of Frog and Toad each day. Next week we will return to a focus on kind words and work together to fill a kindness jar. Our journals have begun; thank you for reading and responding.

PreK
This week we continued our discussions about spiders. The children named one of the spiders outside of the classroom window Sophie, after the character in Sophie's Masterpiece. They really enjoyed watching her catch a grasshopper in her web. We did a lot of speculating how it got up so high.  We read more spider books this week, one very silly book called Diary of a Spider elicited giggles from all. And we've talked a lot about the different types of webs that spiders make. Our trip this week was a walk to the playground at SES.  There have been lots of changes in the community around our school.  The children are keen observers of the differences. Jen was out on Thursday and Friday; the children did pretty well with Dagan and Brittany. Keep up the good work! Jen will be back on Tuesday.