Outdoor Classroom Day
“Outdoor Classroom Day is a global movement to make time outdoors part of every child’s day”.
This year Redwoodtown Kindergarten and Seymour Kindergarten took part in Outdoor Classroom Day. Both Kindergartens took a different approach to their involvement but with the same intention of engaging with the outdoor environment.
Redwoodtown Kindergarten
“The Tamariki of Redwoodtown Kindergarten thoroughly enjoyed participating in International Outdoor Classroom Day, engaging in a range of learning experiences that celebrated exploration and discovery in nature. They demonstrated curiosity, teamwork and creativity as they investigated their environment, worked together to solve problems and expressed ideas through play.
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- Bath time in the sun
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- Reading cubbies
The outdoor setting provided valuable opportunities for developing physical skills, confidence, and a deeper appreciation for the natural world. It was wonderful to see their enthusiasm and sense of wonder as they learned beyond the classroom walls.
They finished off the day with a certificate of participation which they were able to take home and share with their whānanu.” – Kirsty, Redwoodtown Kindergarten.
Certificate of participation
Seymour Kindergarten
While at Seymour Kindergarten, Outdoor Classroom Day was the catalyst to restart their Nature Connection walks for term 4.
“And we are of again. For the next four weeks we will be enjoying our final nature connection for the year. We have
Drawing in the sunshine
a few doing it for the second time and have 6 new children joining us for the first time. We started off the morning with our circle time going over the content of our bags, how to use a magnifying glass and our task for the day….collecting flowers to make natural dyes. Rebecca, Niamh’s mum will be our helper for the next few Thursdays. Gracias Rebecca.
We stopped to say hi to Ian a postie friend. This is a special connection to the posting we did last term.
We stopped and filled our bags with various shades of purple and pink petals to make our dyes. Hunter was very good at recalling the Spanish name for snapdragons bocaisapo…frog mouth 🙂
Taking a closer look
We spent heaps of time hunting for dandelion seed heads. We blew on these and watched the seeds fly into the sky. Then we compared the dandelion flowers with other small yellow flowers we found in the grass. The magic of the magnifying glass came in handy with the spider web and some other seed heads we found. And we also took some time drawing and enjoying the warm sun.
In the afternoon we watched a video on natural dyes. We then had fun alongside our other kindy friends crushing the petals we collected and seeing what comes of that”. – Paola, Seymour Kindergarten.