“Look!” squeals three-year-old Eleanor.  “I can pick up these two balls! It’s magic!”

Have you ever seen young children playing with magnets? The “magical” properties of magnets never fail to captivate early learners and spark a play buzz!

Children learn by investigating, observing and figuring out how things work. Magnets fuel that curiosity in a way that is simple and accessible.

As they explore the properties of magnets through play, children develop a deeper understanding of scientific principles by asking questions such as “why” magnets stick together and “how” magnets work.

Magnetic play helps lay the foundation for further investigations as we guide the children through activities such as developing hypotheses and theories, solving problems and making predictions. By observing and studying cause and effect, our young STEM explorers can begin to develop a basic understanding of concepts such as magnetic attraction, magnet strength and magnetic forces and fields.

Playing with magnets is a great way to introduce STEM into a child’s life. If you need to record observations, this is a great time to take a seat and watch as children incorporate predictions and conclusions into the learning experience.

To set the stage for magnetic exploration, I put out a wooden tray filled with magnetic wands and magnets in a variety of shapes and sizes. Then I give each of the children an aluminum tray to define their play space and keep the magnetic balls from rolling off of the table onto the floor.

When children add magnets or remove them from the tray, they are learning about math concepts such as more, less, off and on. They’re also learning about patterns, shapes and sizes.

I also fill simple sensory bins with colored rice or coffee beans. Then I add magnetic and non-magnetic objects, as well as a magnetic wand for finding the “treasures.” I set two baskets nearby to encourage the children to sort their objects.

“Is this magnetic?” asks one child. “This should work,” says another. “It’s silver!”

Making a prediction means focusing on what we think will happen next based on our prior knowledge. It’s considered a guess if we have no prior knowledge. We can help children develop their prediction skills when we are playing with magnets, reading a story or finding our way home on a walk.

When the children at our early learning center play with magnetic wands and balls, they love to “catch” the balls on the wand and count how many they have. Sometimes I will see them intentionally create patterns.

Playing with magnets is a powerful math and science activity in early childhood classrooms because it fosters conversation and exploration and provides a fun and engaging incentive for children to make predictions and observe outcomes.

If you can, give the children a long period of time to investigate the magic of magnets and work through their theories. This extended time to conduct STEM investigations and learn through focused play is a gift that they may not be given in their future academic lives.

It will amaze you when you see the amount of time that children will spend exploring the magnets on their tray. It’s a calm, quiet and very, very focused activity that slows down even our most frenetic friends.

As we continue to play, we engage in a discussion about the forces that pull magnets together. We keep it pretty basic. This young group hasn’t shown any interest yet in the whys and the hows of magnetic forces and fields. They are too enchanted by the magic of it all. I have been down this trail before. When the brain is ready, the questions will be asked and we will have the resources available to answer their questions and push the experiments and investigations a wee bit further out of their comfort zone. There will be many more experiments for extended learning. But, for now, exploring the magic of magnetism suits us all just fine! 

A few words of caution. Magnets are dangerous if ingested. We hope that our students no longer put everything in their mouths, but we can’t count on it. You know your students better than anyone. It is best to err on the side of caution and use large magnets that cannot possibly fit into a child’s mouth if you are at all concerned. It will make the day of magnetic play more enjoyable for YOU if you don’t have to worry.

Stay safe and take care!

“Look, look! Come and see what is inside this flower!”  It’s a warm, late-spring day and our friends are scattered around the yard, discovering the new surprises that have popped up overnight. The flowers are finally showing their beautiful blooms!

“Is it a bumblebee?” I ask. They look at me—their eyes big with wonder. It’s been many months since we’ve had flowers, and their young brains may not have retained that bit of information. “Sometimes the bees go inside of the flowers to get nectar and pollen. Nectar is like a little energy drink for the bees.”

“Nooooo! It’s black!” says Jamison. His friends gather around to take a closer look at the flower. We have just formed our curriculum for the day—or at least for the moment. We have science as we explore and gain a better understanding of the world around us. We have math as we count and discuss attributes and take parts and join them into a whole. We have language as we learn new vocabulary words. We have art at our fingertips as we explore the beauty of this flower in all of its blossoming glory.

I tell the children that the black pieces are called anthers and the tall green piece at the center of the flower is the stigma. “This is where the pollen and nectar are kept,” I say, “and why the bees like to buzz around inside of our flowers.”

“Can we drink the energy juice?” asks Eve, much to the delight of her giggling friends. Eve smiles, but I know that her brain is really trying to work this out.

“I think we should leave it for the bees,” I suggest.

“The bees will make honey from the nectar,” four-year-old Noah explains. “We can eat the honey but we can’t eat the nectar!”

I see Noah’s friends nodding, as this makes complete sense to them.

“Let’s have honey with our snack this afternoon,” I suggest to the delight of our class.

“This flower has five petals!” I turn around to see our subitizing queen, Annika, at it again. Subitizing is the ability to “see” a small number of objects and know how many are there without counting. When we roll dice, we don’t need to count the pips, we know the number when we see it. Some children grasp this concept easily, while others need to work with it a bit more.

We continue to count the petals, find the stem and leaves and find the anthers again. Individual flower parts are not exciting on their own but, when these pieces are put together, they make something more complex and more beautiful. The learning flows from the lips of the young friends as they share insights and ideas and think out loud as they process all that they are absorbing.

We find the dandelions on the hill and we are again measuring, building our vocabularies and investigating with the field of gold. “Look at how long THIS stem is!” shouts Violet.

I look over to see Claire in a world of her own. Quietly splitting the stem into pieces. Ah, decomposing. Math. Deep exploration to develop an understanding that will make sense in a classroom years down the road.

This is the learning that makes me smile. This is what learning can look like if we give children time to explore and move and play and figure it out in nature. This is the good stuff that sticks in the brain, like nectar to a flower. The foundations of math, science, exploration and investigation. Give your children the gift of nature and let the learning flow on their terms. The math and science and language are all just outside of your door. Enjoy!

Rock balancing or CAIRNS has found its way into our play again this week!

Stacking and balancing rocks encourages math and science investigations that are always developmentally appropriate. My adrenaline starts flowing and a smile grows on my face when a two-year-old child exhibits an innate sense of how to balance many more rocks than her much-older peers. Children have their own unique gifts; we just need to give them opportunities to discover their strengths and talents.

For the record, environmentalists strongly discourage this practice because it disrupts the natural order of nature. I get that. When we are hiking or playing in the woods, we follow that rule. Our outdoor classroom has a dry creek and wonderful rocks collected from parking lots and estate sales. These are our math and science rocks that are used for play.

Children who are math-and-science ready are great problem solvers. When our friends explore the concept of stacking, they make observations, collect data and investigate shapes and sizes and weight. We count, we estimate, we balance, we hypothesize. It’s science, math, language and play all wrapped up in the beauty of nature. Nothing makes me happier than finding hidden stacks of rocks somewhere in our play yard—stacks that have been left behind by inquisitive children who didn’t need to please anyone but themselves.

Two-year-old Lauren created the “ant house” above. I love that she decorated her house with flowers. I watched as she wandered over to the sandbox on the other side of the play yard to return with a handful of sand to sprinkle on the roof. I love that intentionality and vision. I love that she is barefoot with a toenail that is black and blue and may fall off, evidence of some already-forgotten adventure that didn’t go as planned. I love that she is laying the foundation for later learning in math, science and engineering through play.

You can call it STEM, STEAM or STREAM, but it’s basic childhood play. It’s long hours of uninterrupted exploration as a child works to bring an idea to fruition. It’s the brain on fire, building the synapses of learning. It’s the cement in the foundation of a lifelong learner—the evolution of a visionary, problem-solving, risk-taking master.

I often hear early educators worry out loud about meeting the benchmarks or standards required by their programs. My tip for this is to bring in natural materials, give your children TIME to play, take photos and sit down with your standards. You will be shocked at how easy this can be. Engaging young children in daily problem-solving activities will help them develop the processing skills that pave the way for future lessons in math and science. This rock-stacking experience is all about shapes and spatial reasoning. This is geometry! This is engineering! This is spatial orientation as our rock stackers exhibit an understanding of location and ordinal position. Our young stackers are often meeting standards and benchmarks before they have the vocabulary to tell us what they are doing. They gather data about their surroundings as they figure out how to balance a specific rock in the stack. And if that rock won’t balance, they’ll try another. This is organizing data and information. They are busy making predictions about outcomes by playing with rocks.

Always bear in mind, however, that brain development varies in children.

Some children may not yet be ready to meet certain standards. Some may be advanced in one area, while others may be advanced in another.

This is when you are smarter than the standards! You can’t teach a rock to balance if the rock can’t balance. You can’t teach a brain a concept if it isn’t developmentally ready to process that concept.

This is why it’s important to reassure parents that their children will be just fine in life, regardless of their child’s test scores on any given day. You can look parents in the eye on Parent Night and share all of the standards that their children have mastered through play. Then you can assure them that play is laying the foundation for the brain development and problem-solving skills that will serve their children well throughout their lives.

So bring in the math rocks. Your students will soon be sorting, comparing and working with attributes. This is an early educator’s dream.

Best of all, it’s fun! Fun for the child, a true delight for the teacher to behold and such wonderful food for the brain.

Stay safe and keep on rocking on!

If you’ve been fortunate enough to visit The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, or driven by the Arboretum on Interstate 88, you may have spotted Joe the Guardian, a 20-foot-tall, spear-wielding troll peering down at the passing cars from atop his grassy berm. Joe is just one of six towering troll statues created by Danish artist Thomas Dambo. Fashioned from repurposed wood and other natural materials foraged from the Arboretum’s vast acreage, these incredibly detailed trolls have been delighting and inspiring visitors of all ages since they were installed as a temporary exhibition in Spring 2018. 

I like to say that Dambo never lost his childhood love of playing with loose parts. If you’ve followed my blog, you know about my own passion for using loose parts in early childhood classrooms! Some of our students have been fortunate enough to visit the trolls on weekends—and they are always eager to share their tall troll tales with their friends on Monday mornings.

Here’s some rare good news in a year that has had more than its share of bad news: The pandemic that has interrupted life as we know it has also put a pause on the trolls moving on!  If you have a chance to visit the Morton Arboretum before the end of the year, it’s worth a trip. Turn off those screens, get out of the house and breathe in some fresh air. This is STEAM learning in action that will inspire your own loose-parts play!

The Troll Hunt features a collection of trolls constructed from reclaimed wood. But these woody behemoths are 15 to 30 feet tall—a bit more than our gang is capable of constructing. Creating more diminutive trolls is definitely more our speed.

After several weeks of Monday-morning reports of troll sightings at the Arboretum, I took advantage of the trend. First, I printed out photos of the trolls to inspire our early learners to create their own versions of these mythical woodland creatures. Next, we sorted all of our loose parts into baskets and small bowls. Then we created trolls of various shapes and sizes out of small sticks, tree cookies, leaves, buckeyes, corks, shells and fabric—using bits of clay to connect the loose parts.

Architect Simon Nicholson first introduced the concept of loose parts back in the 1970s. Nicholson believed that we are all creative and that loose parts inspire children to engage in experimental, creative play, which is beneficial for child development.

What exactly are loose parts? They are materials that can be moved, carried, combined, redesigned, lined up and taken apart and put back together in multiple ways. They are materials with no specific set of directions that can be used alone or combined with other materials. (Kabel, 2010)

We like to think of loose parts as shells, rocks, sticks, acorns, feathers, pinecones, flowers, flower petals, fabric, water, sand, dirt, moss, leaves, bark, rocks, pebbles, pine needles, seeds and whatever else is native to your region. But we can also use blocks, people, animals and other manipulatives. Loose parts can range from dramatic play props to toy cars, pots, pans or pouring devices.

After studying the photos to determine the materials that were used to create the trolls at the Arboretum, the children noted that the hair on Dambo’s trolls was made from branches and observed the intricate detail on the troll faces and toenails.

Then they began to build their own trolls. At first, the children created two-dimensional trolls. But, as the troll workshop continued and they became more confident and creative in their use of loose parts, they began building in three dimensions.

“I need a leg that is the same size as his arms! See? These legs are too little!”

Jamie was not happy with his troll’s appearance. Digging through the bowl of small twigs, he discovered a longer “leg” and kept digging until he found another that satisfied him. Jamie was busy measuring, sorting and comparing his loose parts, employing nonstandard units of measurement. Sure enough, he was knocking out those early learning standards through play once more! This was a morning spent exploring concepts such as symmetry, geometric shapes and spatial awareness (how things fit in front, behind, next to or underneath something). Recognizing, predicting and building patterns are all important early math and science skills that lay the foundation for later STEM and STEAM learning.

As they engaged in these simple experiences, the children were becoming more proficient at problem-solving, reasoning, predicting and making connections in the world around them. By creating these opportunities for children to see the world through a different lens as they play with loose parts, we open up new avenues of exploration and discovery.

“Sally, you are using shells for your troll’s eyes,” Noa pointed out to her friend. “I used pine cones!”

By observing, asking questions and drawing conclusions, children develop scientific skills. Comparing and describing physical properties while creating their trolls allowed our young learners to think out loud and try out new ideas. When the children weren’t satisfied with how something looked, they would often rearrange the loose parts or start all over again. There was no anger or frustration—just calm exploration.

“Where did you find that grassy stuff for your hair?” Noa asked Sally. But Sally was deep in a state of creative flow. Sally often incorporates fabric into her creations and proceeds more slowly than her peers. But she is very deliberate about her choices. All of this takes time. We don’t need to look at the clock and decide when this activity should end. We can let the children decide. On this fall morning, the troll table sparked a play buzz that lasted for more than two hours as our troll makers followed their curiosity, becoming more confident as they took advantage of new opportunities to engage in art, math and science.

We rarely take walks without bringing home all kinds of loose parts—what the children refer to as “treasures.” If your child keeps small items in containers to create “things” with, your child is playing with loose parts! Take advantage of what you have around you. Those are your tools for setting up a math- and science-rich environment.

If you haven’t experienced the Troll Hunt at the Morton Arboretum, autumn is a great time to visit the Arboretum’s beautiful grounds and maybe find some loose parts along the way. Just be sure to call first to make an appointment, as the Arboretum is enforcing social-distancing measures to ensure visitors’ safety. Don’t forget to check into a membership when you pay for admission. That membership is your ticket to a full year of adventures at more than 300 gardens around the United States. It is a great investment or gift idea. Consider it a year of math and science curriculum as we hit the pause button on life to collect loose parts and scout out those magical, mythical trolls. Happy hunting!

“LOOK!” screams a four-year-old with such joy that we know this isn’t a garden-variety “I want to share something with you” moment.

As the gang rushes to her side, they come to a complete standstill, frozen in awe.

Oh happy day! Some kind souls have shared a fort with the community! There before us stands the most wonderful teepee-shaped fort that we have ever seen. Forts have been popping up all over town this year—and I couldn’t be happier about this trend.

This 14-foot high monument has sparked wonder and curiosity in all of us. We have stumbled upon a STEM adventure! This is math, science and engineering play that allows the learning to come naturally and at each child’s developmental level. This is also sharing. It teaches children that our community creates beautiful spaces to be enjoyed by all.

“Who lives here?” asks Liam as he bravely ventures closer.

“Can we go in?” questions three-year-old Madison, not sure that she really wants to.

We do go in, and the investigation into fort building sets us in motion for the day. Do you remember building forts when you were a kid? Did the memory of that fort just resurface? If it did, you retained that memory and are likely able to build another.

These are the moments that we like to create for our early learners. Hands-on learning enables children to take their understanding to a deeper level so that they can analyze the information that they have collected and then apply this knowledge when they create their own forts.

After giving everyone a turn to observe and discuss the masterpiece in front of us, we take a good hard look at the fort and investigate how it was constructed so that we can build a fort of our own.

We discovered this fort (above) while hiking in our neighborhood.

“I think this fort was started from that fallen branch!” Harper hypothesizes.

This leads to closer observation as we determine that this fort has sides that were built with sticks ranging in size from large to small. By leaning them against the main branch, the architects made the fort longer and wider. We begin to get a better sense of measurement as we visually estimate the length and width of the fort.

We always add a few sticks or branches to any fort that we discover, and today is no different. The older children quickly begin to add branches—an activity that reinforces our perception of the fort as a communal structure. When our younger learners hesitate, we reassure them that they really can’t go wrong by adding a stick or two.

“It looks like a triangle!” shouts Elizabeth. This declaration leads to an animated discussion about shapes and ways to incorporate doors, windows and other shapes into our fort.

We have a geometry class happening before our very eyes! We are looking at two- and three-dimensional shapes and using visualization, spatial reasoning and geometric modeling to solve problems.

These are opportunities that are rich in learning, creativity and team building. We share theories and develop hypotheses about the number of people it might have taken to build the fort, how they got the biggest branches up so high and how they created a base to stabilize the entire structure. We also examine the bottoms of the branches and hypothesize that they were probably broken off during a storm, rather than cut cleanly with a saw.

We know that our forts won’t look like the ones that we’ve encountered. We’ll have to use whatever materials we can find in our own play spaces. But our observations give us a better understanding of the fundamentals of fort and teepee construction. These found structures are the spark of inspiration that we need to design a fort of our own!

It’s time to bring out the assessment chart because this gang is on fire! This playful experience in engineering involves concepts such as angles, inclines, balance and elevation. When we let children learn through play, movement and trial and error, we lay the groundwork for the kind of deep learning that builds new neural connections.

Once the seeds are planted, the children often continue to develop their fort-building skills in our program or in their own backyards.

When the Midwest experienced a rare derecho in August 2020—and every house in our area suddenly had a backyard full of branches—our students immediately began collecting the fallen branches to build forts in their neighborhoods.

They had joined the community-wide fort-building movement!

Notice the similarities? By giving our children long periods of uninterrupted time to play and investigate, we empower them to build their own forts and develop new STEM skills and insights that they will be able to transfer to worksheets when the time is right.

When our students returned to our program this fall, we began napping outdoors on a daily basis. Not surprisingly, when a parent suggested a weekend nap to their child, the child insisted on napping outdoors—in her fort. When children build structures, the joy comes not only from the building but from returning to this place that they have created by themselves, for themselves.

These are the moments when I thank our anonymous community of fort builders for “planting the seeds” of fort building with our young learners. These industrious fort architects may be 12 years old or 90 years old. They may be building these impromptu structures to offer protection from the weather, bring joy to others or simply provide a peaceful place for fellow community members to commune with the natural world.

These lovely forts are gifts of time, hard work and beautiful design that bring science, math and engineering into the lives of our youngest citizens.

Thank you for making so many moments of STEM learning possible through play with the children of our community! You inspire all of us! Thank you! You are truly changing our world!

“I found an empty nest! Can we keep it?” Owen’s joyful discovery captures everyone’s attention.

Three-year-old Avery comes running. “Are there eggs?” she asks her older and wiser five-year-old friend. “Can I see?” she begs. “Please let me see?”

“There are no eggs, just an old nest. Can we please keep it?” pleads Owen.

After a quick glance to confirm that the nest cradled in Owen’s hands is not harboring a feathered inhabitant, I grant my permission.

Owen handles the nest gingerly before realizing that it is sturdier than it looks. After a few tugs and a few moments of studying the nest, he very gently hands it over to the others.

We have a collection of nests. We love to study the materials used to build each nest, as well as the nest construction methods used by different local bird species.

We also try to guess the type of bird that built each nest and how many eggs might have been laid in these cozy homes crafted from sticks, grass, leaves, string, mud and other found objects.

I watch Ave silently investigating and collecting data as she turns the nest in one direction and then another. You can almost see the wheels turning.

“I think the bird used some litter [drinking straws, food wrappers and other debris] to build this nest.” Ave giggles. “And there are like a million sticks in here!”

“A million?” I echo.

“Maybe more!” Ave theorizes.

This moment gives me a valuable insight into Ave’s nascent number sense. Connecting numbers to quantities is a skill that will continue to emerge and evolve with age and brain development.

“The bird added string—and look at this piece of wire she wove in!” shares Maya. “It’s lightweight but very strong. How long does it take her to make this nest? I think this nest is smaller than the others we have.”

This is how we set our curriculum for the day—by following the interests of the children. When we return to our indoor classroom, we will dig out our books to learn more about the various engineering practices that local birds use to build their homes and compare this newest nest to the others in our collection.

Living along the Mississippi River as we do, we are blessed with the return of our beloved bald eagles each winter and spring. From December to March, these magnificent birds migrate south from Canada and often make our area their winter home. Some even like it so much that they make it their permanent home.

In the fall and winter, the eagles rebuild their nests to prepare for the hatching of the eaglets. Eagles nesting in our area typically lay their eggs in mid-to-late February, and the eggs hatch by mid-to-late March.

Once the eggs have hatched, the female stays with the eaglets while the male leaves to find food for the female and her hatchlings.

The eaglets grow quickly and are ready to fly—or “fledge”—by late May or early June. A number of webcams have been set up by organizations in the area so that we can watch the life cycle of the eagles playing out before our eyes.

This is where I struggle. We are a screen-free environment. I know that we can link to so much learning with technology. I know that I need to stop being so stubborn. I am that old-school playground leader who hasn’t embraced the many educational benefits of 21st-century technologies.

We weren’t always screen-free—and I have fond memories of the year when we observed a wee bit of eagle life via webcam.

I hated the screen, but I loved learning about our local eagles. When an eagle brought a large fish to the nest, we were spellbound. But the fact that we’d been sucked into spending time staring at a screen contradicted everything that I believed in regarding early education—and I was overcome with guilt.

So when the first warm day of spring arrived, we created our own eagle’s nest in the center’s outdoor play area.

“Declan, how big is an eagle’s nest?” I asked, measuring tape in hand.

“Seven feet wide,” he responded. “What are you doing?”

I quickly measured out seven feet and put a heavy rock from the rain garden on the spot. The children began adding rocks until we had a circle that was seven feet in diameter.

For a few minutes, the children pretended to be eagles living in a happy little rock nest—until one perspicacious preschooler called me out.

“Wait! This isn’t a nest!” Asa declared. “We need to add sticks and leaves and yarn. We need more!”

“We do need branches and sticks!” agreed four-year-old Joshua.

“Over here!” directed two-year-old Gabe.

Game on! Now we were learning, creating and analyzing. We’d taken what we’d learned during our screen time and translated it into real-life, hands-on learning that met so many of the math and science standards that they would struggled to achieve on a worksheet!

This was when we grabbed our books and discovered that an eagle has a wingspan of 6-8 feet. We also learned that a mature eagle has 7,000 feathers, weighs 8-11 pounds and has vision so keen that it can see the print on a newspaper at a distance equal to the length of a football field. These are the details that young children are likely to absorb.

Because bald eagles are most active from sunrise to 11 a.m. as they feed along the open water of our locks and dams, this coincides quite well with our outdoor times. Lucky for us, they return to their roosting areas in the afternoon hours.

After lunch, some time spent browsing through eagle books and a nap, the boys made their way back out to their new eagle’s nest. If they build it, they will play in it. They had been playing there for a good long time when, sure enough, up in the sky, an eagle appeared!

Yes, a  real live eagle! Would she think this was HER nest? Could she see the boys in HER nest?

As the boys contemplated the possibility of the eagle swooping down and landing amongst them, they scrambled out of their nest in pure terror.

The eagle did not land in our nest. But, sadly, our frightened little learners never returned. I left the nest in place for over a week, and some of the younger children played in it, but the boys who built it kept their distance!

I often find that most of the fun is in the building phase of the project. The collaborating, creating, adding, subtracting, analyzing and evaluating with friends is actually the play for building kids. This is the good stuff that happens with play; enough time to engage in deep, investigative learning; and, sometimes, just the right amount of technology.

Take time to follow the lead of your students and see where their interests and curiosity take you. Then match their learning up with your early learning standards.

This link will take you to the Arconic Eagle Cam.

Full disclosure: The male eagle will bring food back to the nest. This could be a raccoon, a fish or a mouse. It is nature. It is graphic. It can be addicting or terribly uneventful at any given moment!

When we build nests of our own, we often use this Scientific American site as a reference. But if you’ve lingered too long on the Arconic Eagle Cam link provided above and feel guilty about overdoing the screen time, you can just WING it—pun intended!

Ha! Let’s get outside and play.

“It works! The water is coming out!” Rokia cannot contain her excitement as the discovery of a full rain barrel adds a new avenue of discovery and learning for our week.

“How did you do that? Can I have a turn? Get a bucket!” The excitement builds as so many little brains begin to figure out what is happening here. We have hypotheses, theories and observation humming away. There is nothing like water to bring a group of children together for a day of play and learning that can help you meet your curriculum goals.

As the United States begins to open up with precautions in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19, there are opportunities to literally change the landscape of early childhood education by spending more time in outdoor spaces.

The best place for our children as we navigate this “new normal” is in nature. Studies show that sunlight, higher temperatures and humidity are detrimental to the survival of the coronavirus.

We also know that exposure to dirt helps young children develop healthy microbiomes and strong immune systems. Outdoor activities make social distancing easier—and research suggests that outdoor learning can deliver many other benefits, from boosting mood and increasing concentration to reducing stress.

You can meet many important early learning standards easily with outdoor play. And once you take your curriculum outdoors, you may never want to head back inside!

It’s important for anyone working with young children to understand the enormous potential for learning and brain development that exists when children are connected to nature. As children actively use their senses to explore the natural world, they are forging new neural connections and strengthening neural pathways through sensory play.

In short, outdoors is where our children need to be—and setting up an outdoor classroom is easier than you think. You don’ t even need to have a natural setting.

Water is a great place to start because we want the children in our care to wash their hands A LOT during the pandemic—and we can set up water play just about anywhere.

Incorporating water into our daily play with a rain barrel was one of the smartest things I ever did. We love using rain barrels for scientific exploration and discovery, as well as teaching children how to be good stewards of the earth’s limited resources. Many cities give away rain barrels for free to promote water conservation. If your city doesn’t have a rain barrel program, you can purchase a rain barrel for $50-$150 or make your own from a plastic trash can with a lid.

The children love to use the spigot on our rain barrel to explore the concept of flowing water and control the water’s flow. Let me tell you, being in control of something so powerful is a pretty powerful experience in its own right!

The communication and social-emotional skills that develop during this outdoor activity are worth their weight in gold. If your building has a downspout or an outdoor water source, that may be where you place your rain barrel. During very hot, dry summers, we sometimes have to resort to filling the rain barrel with our garden hose. By taking the time to think about these issues, you will help ensure the success of your own rain-barrel adventures.

We are also big proponents of tubs for water play. We use everything from big plastic tubs to utility tubs from auto stores to bus pans from restaurant supply stores to commercial school-supply tubs. This summer, we are adding soap bubbles to the buckets to encourage play and kill germs in a calm, not-in-your-face-scary-virus way. Doing this in front of the students will be a whole science and math lab in itself as they discuss the addition of ingredients, the change in matter, the chemical reaction that takes place and the change in physical properties. So, yes, grab those standards! This is the hands-on learning that we love—all while keeping our children safe from germs!

We were fortunate to have a handyman in our lives with the vision and skill to create a working pump. We buried a short, wide rain barrel and connected it to the farmhand pump. If you’d like to give this a try, you can get the step-by-step directions here. This pump has added hours and hours to our investigations and play. We absolutely LOVE our pump, and it is one of the most popular additions to our outdoor classroom. Many an hour has been spent here learning about cause and effect as the children see “what happens if….” Trust me, they have investigated the craziest ideas that adults just wouldn’t conceive of!

“Eve, come see!  Look what’s crawling under the bridge!” Jamison has discovered a daddy longlegs out for a morning stroll in our rain garden. Many cities and towns across the U.S. are beginning to award grants for rain gardens. We took advantage of our local grant program and created a rain garden filled with native pollinating plants and a dry creek that gifts us with insects, an occasional toad or two, and plenty of opportunities for exploration, observation and investigation.

Last summer, we added a mister connected to a simple garden hose to our tree. With pools closed during the pandemic, this mister (which we ordered from Amazon) is a great alternative that you can take advantage of without great expense or worries about water safety. We supplement the mister with big tubs of water and plenty of buckets and spray bottles. Heavy buckets of water and spray bottles are great resources for building strong arms, wrists and fingers for future pencil gripping. Bring in measuring cups, measuring spoons, tall containers and short wide containers and you have set your students up for outdoor learning activities that will foster the development of predicting, data analysis, probability and geometry skills.

It won’t take the children long to figure out that the mister will afford them many opportunities for water collection. This, in turn, will encourage pouring and measuring and experimenting with volume. Nearby plants, flowers, rocks, shells and other loose parts will add to the value of the play. When children make dandelion soup or rock salad, they are combining, collaborating, creating and imagining. It’s all there for us to document. They don’t need worksheets, they need play!

As we navigate our way around the pandemic, maybe we need to return to the roots of early childhood education by taking a page from the playbook of the German educator and nature lover Friedrich Froebel, who founded the first kindergarten (which translates literally to “children’s garden”). Froebel’s original kindergarten model in 1837 emphasized time and opportunities for children to connect with natural materials in a garden for play. Maybe this is what kindergarten could and should emulate as we reimagine early childhood education this year.

All of the activities that you need to meet your math and science standards are awaiting you in the garden. Head outside and lay the foundation for math and science success with a developmentally appropriate day of nature play.

Let’s take back what early education could look like in America. Join me!

“I found GOLD!” squeals Laura. Four little friends are quick to join her in the latest gold rush in the sandbox. In the wee hours of the morning, often when the sun is barely above the horizon and the coffee is still being brewed, gold will magically appear in our sandbox. Spray-painted rocks that will give our young friends hours of digging, collecting, hoarding and, hopefully, sharing.

Once upon a time back in 1886, the first sand garden was created in the yard of the Children’s Mission on Permenter Street on the North End of Boston. In the late 1800s, sand gardens were viewed as safe places for immigrant children to play in during the summer months while their parents worked in factories. Today, these early sand gardens are often referred to as America’s “first playgrounds.” As we reimagine education during the pandemic, perhaps we should harken back to a simpler time and create sand gardens for our young learners!

A sandbox seems so simple, but it is truly a blank canvas—inviting curiosity and creativity, exploration and investigation. It offers a soothing sensory experience and an opportunity to experience natural textures while experiencing the peace and simple pleasures of sand play. Peer pressure will entice wary friends to strip off their shoes and tentatively join in the fun. Placing a big “Shoe Basket” near your sandbox is essential for your own mental health. It will save you hours of searching for socks and shoes. When we add loose parts to our sand, we create opportunities for counting, collecting and designing. We can explore symmetry and patterns. By adding baking tools, we can explore measurement and estimation. Opportunities abound for vocabulary growth and lessons about location and position.

“Joseph, can you get the trucks to drive under our castle?” The children have been busy building and decorating large mounds of sand. Now they have moved on to cautiously digging out tunnels. Tunnel digging builds engineering knowledge as the children predict, problem-solve and collaborate with friends—all while spending long periods of time engaging in what appears to be play. Are you documenting this? Check those early math and science learning standards off of your list!

We can encourage children to mix sand with water to see how adding water changes the physical properties of the sand. This sand play allows the children to create models of their own making. What they imagine, they can create. They create plans, make observations and experiment with ideas. This is science!

As educators and parents, we often miss the opportunities and possibilities that sand play presents. It took me years to figure out that if I took three minutes to rake the sand and make it more inviting, my effort would be rewarded as more children engaged in hours of deep learning and exploration every single day. Consider preparing your sandbox as essential as prepping any other area of your classroom. If the sandbox is full of leaves, too many loose parts from yesterday’s play or any other undesirables, it won’t be, well…desirable! Make sure your sandbox is inviting, and you will “invite” the children to explore math and science concepts with a soothing blank canvas. Unless, of course, there is a major construction project underway. On those days, I gently place a tarp over the sandbox to protect the project until our pint-sized “construction crew” returns the following morning.

If sand is a new adventure for you, recognize and remove any obstacles early on. One important tip is that you must have a water source nearby to make the sand packable. A garden hose, gallon buckets of water or nearby rain barrels will open up a treasure trove of opportunities that are not possible with dry sand. Shade is another important element to consider. You can create shade with a large umbrella if you do not have a tree to shade your sandbox. Or you can use parachutes from the gym, which can be strategically placed with a little bit of ingenuity to create shade.

I know educators who are allergic to sand in the same way that they are allergic to playdough. Ha! I know who you are! But, in this year of uncertainty, let’s allow our students to enjoy the serenity, sensory pleasures and myriad possibilities of outdoor sand play.

I promise you, it will buy you hours of calm, hands-on learning. If you build it, they will come. Just do it!

“Vera, Vera!  Come see how bright the colors are in my rainbow!” Four-year-old Owen is ecstatic about his discovery of a colorful collection of wet chalk after a summer shower in our outdoor classroom. This happy accident has paved the way for a sensory adventure as we meet our math and science early learning standards through play.

Owen is our engineer of playful learning. “This chalk feels different and it is so smooth to write on the sidewalk. Hurry, Vera!”

Owen is our full-of-life friend who loves to explore and discover and test out new ideas. He will extend the play until it’s time to leave or his stomach begins to rumble with hunger. He is also great at retaining the lessons he has learned for future exploration and discovery. Owen is our poster child for scientific investigation and math foundation!

“Owen, you can blend all of the colors! Do it with your feet!” Vera shouts back.

Vera is Owen’s partner in crime. There is nothing that beats the joy of childhood summers and outdoor learning. We don’t need worksheets to meet our early learning standards. We just need time to investigate, explore and experiment with a little bit of water, a bucket of chalk and our favorite friends. Water turns sidewalk chalk into an entirely different medium—transforming a dry and dusty classroom staple into a creamy and vibrant tool of creative expression. Trust me: Wet chalk will open up new avenues of imagination, exploration and learning in the preschool brain!

“Parker! Can you draw a person using shapes?” asks Avery, prompting her creative collaborator to tackle a new challenge. Here come our math standards, sneaking their way back into our play. Math vocabulary is exploding in our outdoor classroom. We are suddenly discussing lines and patterns and shapes and sizes. Blending is a form of addition, grouping, sets and prediction.

“I think the chalk will dry lighter,” Owen predicts as Vera nods in agreement.

“Why?” asks three-year-old Avery.

“Because the color of the dry chalk in the basket is lighter than the wet chalk on the sidewalk,” Owen answers. “Let’s try it!”

At Owen’s prompting, the children run off to conduct their latest experiment.

Ah, yes. The wet chalk has presented us with a priceless teaching-and-learning moment initiated and carried out by the children in our program. We have science as we observe, ask questions, problem-solve and draw conclusions. We have cause and effect, data analysis and design as the group tests out its theory. The mathematical and scientific inquiry has begun—and a whole new chapter of learning has become our curriculum for the day. This is why early childhood educators create their lesson plans at the end of the day—to build on the day’s explorations and extend them into the following day’s lessons. This is child-led learning!

Today, we have chalk investigative play happening. Our children discuss textures and exchange observations as they collaborate on their art in progress. Through their play with wet chalk, the children are describing and comparing physical properties. They are exploring concepts of force and motion as they draw with different amounts of pressure or drop dry pieces of chalk onto the sidewalk to create chalk bombs that explode on impact.

We spend a lot of time discussing math and science early learning standards here. But our day of chalk play also played an important role in preparing the children in our program for a successful transition to kindergarten.

Following are a few insights into the hidden benefits of chalk play—insights that can be shared with parents who may question the value of outdoor play and its role in advancing their children’s kindergarten readiness:

Kindergarten, sadly,  involves a lot of sitting time. Children need strength throughout their bodies—including strong core muscles to sit all day. When children get down on their hands and knees and support their upper-body weight with their arms and hands, this strengthens their core muscles, as well as their shoulder muscles, which are so important for fine-motor dexterity. Small pieces of chalk promote the development of the tripod grasp needed for pencil gripping. Drawing big chalk rainbow arches requires children to cross the midline. Why is this so important? Kindergarteners need midline-crossing skills so that the dominant hand can efficiently move from left to right across the page.

These are all bonuses for kindergarten readiness—above and beyond the early learning standards. This is the foundation that we talk about when we play our way into academic life. These small steps will enable our children to succeed when it’s time to sit at a desk.

“My chalk is shrinking really fast!” giggles Rowan.

Oh, how I love shrinking chalk! Yes, we are definitely collecting data, making observations and noticing cause and effect. But there’s more happening here than meets the eye. We know that the transition to smaller writing utensils helps promote the development of better gripping skills. As the children continue to draw and their pieces of sidewalk chalk get shorter and smaller, they are effectively transitioning to smaller writing tools and strengthening their gripping skills. We try not to rush writing in our young learners. But when it happens spontaneously, we try to promote the use of smaller pieces of chalk, crayons or pencils to help them develop age-appropriate gripping skills.

You never know where play will lead your little learners. But trust that there will be learning happening as the children share insights and ideas while building strong and trusting friendships. So let the children play in their outdoor classroom—and join in the “alfresco fun” as you meet your early learning standards!

“Look! The people blocks are in a line and they crash at the bottom,  just like when we play on the slide!”

This is a lightbulb moment as Evelyn transfers knowledge gleaned from a previous play experience into her current hands-on learning. A chain-reaction domino fall during today’s block play reminds Evelyn of waiting in line, forming a chain with her friends and banging into her friends at the bottom of the slide.

Learning is not learning unless it is applied to something real. This is the key to unlocking an understanding of math, science and reading skills.

Evelyn is beginning to “see” and retain her play epiphanies, building a rich experiential foundation that will help her make the most of her learning adventures today and in the years to come.

Soon, more young explorers join Evelyn at the table and our outdoor classroom grows quiet as the children engage in their own investigations with their favorite, people-shaped blocks.

We love blocks for so many reasons, but mainly because block play naturally adapts to the developmental level of the child. This is a great time to document the different math and science standards that our early learners are meeting. It’s also a good time to observe the mentoring and scaffolding that takes place as our young friends take their skills to the next level.

Our morning of block play turns out to be a great opportunity for the children to hone their fine-motor and problem-solving skills while developing traits such as patience and determination.

Because the blocks (or dominoes) do not have to be evenly spaced to set up a chain reaction, this is an activity that even our two-year-olds can master.

“Ugh, I am so frustrated!” declares Noah with a laugh. The children use the word “frustrated” many, many times during the activity because they enjoy mastering a new word (and because every other child at the table is using it), rather than as a true expression of frustration.

This is play! It is also a wonderful opportunity to share math and science vocabulary words such as force, push, speed, predict, hypothesis, distance, length and probability. I toss these words out like seeds to be planted for future understanding. Some of the children grasp these vocabulary words immediately and incorporate them into a new lexicon that reflects their growing understanding of mathematical and scientific principles.

“Hey! You are in my way!” shouts Eve as her line of block people intersects with Sally’s. I watch as Sally takes notice with an air of quiet concentration. “I know! Let’s make a square!” Eve shouts again before Sally can problem-solve her way out of the temporary crisis. Suddenly, we have collaboration and a new plan. We are creating shapes and timing our push-offs to coincide with those of our friends. We have teamwork and data analysis to see if the plan will work, where the blocks will meet and who will “win”!

Our morning of block people play takes off in many directions. They are counting and creating lines and curves and talking about direction and using words like far, near, behind, in front of and flat. This is geometry! They are also using words like never, impossible, probably and always—the language of data analysis and probability.

Jamie is quietly working on a whole new investigation. He has moved on to stacking, which takes a bit more patience and determination, and he really is getting frustrated! He has a plan and he knows what he wants to do, but the slightest movement on the table sends his circus act crashing down.

Jamie is our busy, rambunctious, always thinking, always moving friend. When he slows down enough to work on a project like this stacking challenge, he gives it the same 100% effort that he gives to nearly every activity in his day.

When we give children the materials and the time to explore and play, we can relax and remember that this is learning. This approach helps form the successful students and problem-solvers of the future!