Winter Outdoor Kindergarten

When I tell people that I teach in an outdoor immersion kindergarten program, one of the first responses is usually "Even in the winter?!"  This post will include some of the outdoor activities we engage with during the long winter months here in the bold north of Minnesota.

We have access to a skating ring on our property.  Most students don't have any skating experience but are curious about the rink.  We try out boot skating and we bring out our chairs to help with balance.  This is particularly fun and engaging in an Olympic year.

Measuring heights compared with a snowman.  Engineering snowmen with different sized snow chunks.

Using found objects to create snow sculptures.  Observing the changes these creations go through over time.

Exploring Mount Snowmungeous!  Created by snow plowed from our parking lot.

How many ways can we use a stick in the winter?

Creating a pretend campfire and gathering sticks with a sled.

Comparing icicle lengths.

How many kids can fit on this log? Math exploration.

For some of our students with special needs and mobility issues the story strolls we make accessible are on of the few ways for them to engage in outdoor learning.

Our naturalist teaching about the Maple Syrup process.

Checking on the tapped Maple Trees.

Working as a team to balance snow chunks.

Using our 5 senses to create a snow poem.

Snow angel circle.

Exploring how temperature changes affect snow and melt.  Mud suits highly recommended!

Checking out animal tracks in the snow.

Pumpkin Explorations

The play button should take to you to a video of our school naturalist chopping open our giant pumpkin.

I hope technology is on our side!

 

A family donated a giant pumpkin!  We made a big rocker balance out of a log (fulcrum) and a sturdy board.  The kindergarteners were able to compare their weight with the giant pumpkin.  Only two kids were able to tip the scale!  Later, our naturalist chopped the pumpkin open.  We collected the seeds and watched it decompose in our learning forest.  

We invited families and other adults in our district community to lead small groups of kids in a pumpkin exploration day.  They counted seeds, explored pulp, weighted, measured and carved.  We provided observation sheets to record their findings.  Using this produce scale to weigh the pumpkins was a highlight.

Click on this link to watch the magic of baking soda, vinegar, and green food coloring as they interact with a carved pumpkin.

We kept one pumpkin indoors, enclosed in a plastic container and observed the decomposition process.
The book Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell is a great resource and read aloud for this.

We left some of our pumpkins outside to find out what would happen to them.

The happy dancing pumpkin helped us learn a pumpkin rhyme.

We asked families to donate gourds and pumpkins.  We collected enough variety to engage in hands on sorting, measuring and patterning activities.


More pumpkin physics!

Name and Alphabet stations

The following are photos of some of the alphabet and name building activities we tried out inside .

 

Shape pieces that can be locked together to make letters.

Letter stamps in kinetic sand.

Wooden shape blocks that can be used to create letters, being outlined with pretty stones.  Building awareness of lines and working on fine motor skills.

Highway letters used with toy cars.  Make and drive your name!

Using tongs and tweezers to pick up pom poms and small stones to help develop hand strength and fine motor skills.

Using letter rocks to match letters to name tags.

Open House Activities

This year we had an in person open house.  I wanted to create nature based activities for students to engage with that would help families understand the tone of our new outdoor immersion Kindergarten program.  I also tried using the Reggio style of provocations to help me practice using these with children.  Here are the activities with photos and descriptions.

These are unfinished wood pieces of varying shapes.  The wooden rounds served as pace holders and bases for creations.  Visitors of all ages enjoyed building all sorts of creations.  This was the favorite.

Baskets of shells were set at each place.  Visitors of all ages enjoyed touching and sorting them and holding them up to their ears to listen to the ocean.

Pieces of yoga mat serve as placemats.  These are the alphabet rocks from a previous post.  It was interesting to observe those who recognized letters in their names.

This is the beginning of a chandelier.  We provided markers and ribbons.  Parents were invited to write a hope for their child for kindergarten and tie it on the circle.  We displayed this in the hallway leading to the kindergarten rooms.  It was beautiful to read the notes the parents wrote and helped connect school to home.

 

Sit Upons- Ideas for upcycled and sustainable outdoor seating

One of the challenges of gathering out students outside for lessons was keeping them from constant seat changing and spacing.  We spent time each day explaining how to give your neighbor enough space to be comfortable.  Some of our kinders were reluctant to sit on the ground at all and other times the grass would be wet or cold making sitting uncomfortable.  We turned to a tried a true girl scout solution and created sit upons from upcycled materials.  In this picture students are sitting on yoga mats that have been cut in thirds.

This kinder kid is sitting on a insulated bag used for grocery delivery (which I relied upon during the stressful times of the COVID pandemic.

Pictured here are the insulated bag version and the handle bag version.  Both are stuffed with a few layers of newspaper and the handle bag also has upcycled bubble wrap to give it extra cushion.  Both are glued shut.
We store the sit upons in plastic totes strategically spaced around our gathering space and we make sure they are put away after each gathering.
In the winter we don't use sit upons because kids are wearing snow pants.  We will them that they are their own sit upon!
I've tried out all three types we have and they are surprisingly comfortable and portable.  The only cost was time to make them.