What a start to our Outdoor Kindy Week! It was a beautiful, mild, sunny day and the children arrived enthusiastic and ready for a fun-filled day of learning. The children had so many good ideas at morning meeting; pirates and treasure hunting thanks to a treasure map that arrived (antiqued with coffee and burnt around the edges) with one of our young treasure seekers, batcaves and cubbies, climbing and building with boxes, and staging a concert.

Before we knew it an enthusiastic group were helping Katie with the climbing ropes and another group had begun cubby building under the apple tree. The donation of a load of willow branches from one of our kindy families added another dimension to the cubby.

 One thing we have really observed after our Bush Kindy days is that the children are now climbing so high at kindy! They are accessing trees and branches that they have not used before (or have used in different ways)  There is definitely more risk-taking in their play.

The concert goers began decorating the stage with chalk and water paints; and immediately we noticed just how aware of print our children are; “Look, that is an L  like in my friend’s name!” “That is an N. My dad’s name starts with N, N for Noel!”  They are also very adept at colour mixing!

 After the chalk painting a rope was strung up across the yard and lengths of fabric were draped and pegged up to make a stage.  We learned that some of our children would be quite capable of helping peg washing at home!

Using tools such as the hand-drills, pliers and wire proved both rewarding and challenging.

The batcave needed a brick wall so the children got to work mixing mortar and bricklaying in a most professional manner.

 There was time for chilling out with friends; and for playing with boxes;And for making special things with friends;

And as usual the children proved that there really IS treasure at Kindy by finding all manner of bones, rocks, sticks, and natural objects to marvel at. We even unearthed a 1972 2cent coin!  Of course there were plenty of opportunities to again explore the properties of mud, water, and sand.

The plastic guttering and cardboard tubes became a great tunnel for rolling the round seedpods down and when we tired of that they were great for peeping through, and for sound experiments.  When I asked why the sound was louder when I put my ear up to the pipe I was told “Because all of the noise is in the pipe and it echoes!” 

At the end of the day we were treated to a concert; with singing and dancing a plenty.  Once again our kindy kids have crammed so much wonderful learning into a single day! It really is a privelege to be a part of their learning journey, and best of all, there are still 3 days of Outdoor Kindy Week left! Let the joy continue!

written by Nell