Playing and learning outside in the spring

Spring has finally arrived in our area, and the kids have loved playing and being outside. We've been studying weather and sunshine during science time, which has meant lots of trips outside to record and experience the weather. More about that on another week! For now, here are some pictures of everyone enjoying the beautiful spring weather during recess, Forest Friday, and other parts of the day.

We started off last week exploring birds and recording signs of spring in our neighborhood.

We also spent a recess period outside in the front yard, as well as our first Forest Friday since winter started! The schoolyard has new giant tree stumps for climbing - which was a great opening to talk about risk and the importance of listening to your body and heart when trying something new, as well as asking for help when you need it. 

We also did some digging in the garden and searching for worms.

The hill provided lots of opportunities for heavy lifting and teamwork to get large stumps up the hill.

We also brought out tools for learning about the outdoors more deeply - including clipboards for observational drawings, binoculars, magnifying glasses, and egg cartons for nature collections.

Our published books

Last month we officially became authors! While we do lots of writing throughout our day, this was the first time had done a dedicated Writers Workshop hour, where the kindergarteners chose what to write about - anything from letters and poems to fantasy stories and non-fiction topics. We studied writing strategies such as how to brainstorm writing topics, the importance of putting spaces between our words, and how to use an alphabet chart to help sound out words. After several weeks, each student picked their favorite piece to publish, edited it, and made fancy covers. I was so impressed with their writing skills and how the final writing turned out! Below are some examples of writing and editing in progress, as well as the proud authors with their published work.

Read Your Heart Out + more

The last week before spring break was a lot of fun! It was full of visitors - we had a visit from the nature center who taught us how to tap our maple tree, a visit from the UW pharmacy students who taught us how to treat medicine safely in our homes, and guest readers including a parent and several first graders who wrote non-fiction books to share with us. We also had Read a Thon, where the students could bring as many books from home as they wanted, and we kept track of how many books we read throughout the day. The result was over 100! Pictures of all these things, plus a few other fun things we've been doing in the last few weeks, are below.

Playing fun math games

Doing puzzles and playing board games

Guest readers

Celebrating spring by making flowers and rainbows

Read a Thon!