Mrs. Atkin's Kindergarten: Outdoor Learning Experiences

Our students love spending time outside in our "Here We Grow Discovery Garden." Recently the students have been using natural materials to build benches, balance beams, forts, and whatever their beautiful imaginations come up with.

We have been learning how to use our "Discovery Garden" and playground in meaningful ways. The students have also been taking it upon themselves to find brooms and sweep the mulch back into the garden area, sweep the black rubber mulch back to the play climber, as well as keeping the truck clean. They have begun to gain ownership and truly want to take care of our garden. The students are devastated when they find the tools and digging materials have not been properly put way or cared for. At the end of each of our outdoor learning experiences, we are sure to take care of the materials by putting them where they belong.

Students have also become eager to take care of our garden by watering the herbs, vegetable plants, and flowers. They also enjoy pulling up all of the weeds. Maggie says it best: "We have to pull the weeds because they overcrowd the plants and they can't grow." We use our minds, muscles, and imaginations while taking care of our garden and playground. I do have to say that watering the plants is their favorite part of our outdoor experience time.

Grace is using her strong muscles to pull the water hose across the garden!

Our pepper plants needed a lot of love. With it being so hot the last couple weeks we needed to water them often.

(My students last year planted peppers, onions, broccoli, and potatoes plants. Although they didn't get to see their hard work pay off, our students this year will! In the spring maybe we will plant veggies for next years kindergarteners! Although it's a little backwards, they still get to see the life cycle of the garden plants.)

I am pleased by the amount of students that garden with their families at home and know the appropriate setting of which to water the plants.

The butterflies and bumble bees have been loving our garden! We love to see them knowing they are pollinators and help to make our garden beautiful. We have learned the appropriate way to handle, touch, and smell flowers. We first make sure there are no bees, and then use a gentle touch. We don't pick the flowers in our garden knowing if we pick them, our other friends will not be able to enjoy its' beauty. In the near future, we hope to have a spot in our garden where the students can pick the flowers.

Grace is taking a look at the seeds this sunflower has produced. We hope to keep some of these seeds to plant in the spring!

Here are some of the beautiful butterflies that have stopped by lately.

This week we had the opportunity to harvest one beautiful red pepper and two cucumbers. Unfortunately, many of the peppers have been picked from our plants, but we still have several growing and many more blooms on the plants. We took the pepper and cucumbers inside and ate them as part of our daily snack.