“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!

If you are inside and the skies get very dark and the rain is coming down hard, bring the children to the window to look for lightning.  You can explain that lightning is a loud noise caused by electricity in the clouds.  Once the children see the lightning, have them count slowly until they hear the thunder.  It takes about 5 seconds for the sound of thunder to travel one mile so the higher the number the farther away the storm is.  Repeat this each time you see lightning. They can then figure out if the storm is coming closer or if it is moving away.

This is a great way for the children to think about storms, to work through their fears about the loud noises thunder makes, and to use their counting skills for something that connects to their lives.

These memories remind me that rain, just like the snow, is one of nature’s ways of providing us with an interesting topic to explore.  How can we create curriculum using the spring rains and support mathematical understandings in meaningful ways with young children?  I usually see preschoolers talk about the weather during circle time.  One of the children is a weather person. S/he walks over to the window and reports the day’s weather and sometimes s/he gets to mark the weather on a graph or the calendar.  Most often, it is an unremarkable part of the morning circle.

If we get a good amount of spring rains this month, how about shaking it up and creating an opportunity for a real exploration of rain?  If it is warm (and there isn’t any thunder and lightning) take the children outside to play in the rain. This will require some planning in terms of rain coats, rubber boots, and extra sets of clothes.  I guarantee the children will find new ways of exploring the same old space.

It might also be interesting to place different sized receptacles outside and near a window so the children can watch the rain accumulate.  You can create a graph so they can mark “how much” rain is in each container throughout the day.  This will also allow them to see that even though the rain is falling into the containers in the same way, the different sizes and shapes of the containers will make a difference about how high the water rises.

Next week, I will write about another exploration of rain that you can try this month.  Let us know what you think or if you have another idea about rain and math.

If I were the weather person today, I would be using words like “the rainiest”, “the darkest”, “the yuckiest”, the “wettest”, “the floodiest”, (I know it is not a word, but it fits for today), and “the rain of the century”.

Exploring some of the relativity in this week’s weather will provide glorious opportunities for children to think about “how much rain” is falling, “how deep are the puddles”, and “how long will it last”?  You can talk about “Hundred Year Rains” and the last time anyone remembers school closings because of rain.  I would venture to guess, that most of the children in your programs have NEVER seen this much rain in their young lives.

Once any threat of danger passes and the rains recede, take those children outside to explore the puddles and the mud.  Put their rain boots and slickers on and get ’em outside.  There is nothing more fun and exhilarating than playing in the aftermath of a rainstorm.

Until then, be safe and be careful.  As in all weather-related matters in the midwest, “This too, shall pass.”