“Will the children be kindergarten ready if they spend their days playing outside?”

As educators, we are often asked about kindergarten readiness by nervous parents who want to give their children the best possible start in life.

It’s important for parents—and educators—to understand that there are endless opportunities for deep learning when children are connected to nature. Young children learn primarily through their senses. The natural world—with its stimulating and constantly changing elements—provides the ultimate sensory learning environment.

When children explore the world through sensory play, they are actively building new neural pathways, which is crucial for brain development. When we slow down enough to observe this process, it’s easy to see the learning that takes place, and the social skills that are being developed, as the children collaborate on projects in the great outdoors.

On an unusually warm day in May, the boys in our program are busy building a large castle in the sandbox. This may look like nothing more than sandbox play, but there’s some deep learning going on here as our castle architects lay the foundation for future academic success.

“We should build a moat!” declares Joshua.

“Yeah, a moat!” agrees the gang. “We definitely need a moat!”

With these words, the digging begins. Before long, the castle builders decide that it’s time to add water to the moat. We have plenty of buckets at our center, but today most of the buckets are already in use.

Looking around for a way to transport the water from the pump to the sandbox, the boys settle on a nearby piece of fabric from one of their forts.

We’re all hot, tired and likely a little dehydrated at this point. A glance at the clock tells me that it’s almost closing time. But who am I to redirect the boys by pointing out the empty bucket next to the fence?

I watch as the boys carefully stretch the material out and center it beneath the pump spigot to catch as much water as they can. Asa begins pumping and, to my astonishment, the fabric holds the water without any leakage.

WHAT in the world?  I’m marveling at this unexpected development when it occurs to me that the cloth I’d purchased from the resale shop is actually a waterproof fabric used in hospital settings.

When I ask the boys if they were aware that the fabric was waterproof when they grabbed it, they respond with a question of their own: “What does waterproof mean?”

I try to explain that waterproof means that the water will not flow through the fabric. But there are times for discussion and times for action—and the boys are already focused on the next step in their plan.

First, they gather the corners of the cloth, taking care to keep the water from gushing out the sides. Then they make their way gingerly across the yard to the sandbox and carefully place the fabric in the moat.

I realize at this point that the boys had deliberately ruled out the use of buckets because they needed a flexible, waterproof liner for their castle moat.

They had assumed that the fabric they chose would hold water and, at the same time, conform to the shape of the moat. Wow! They were way ahead of me!

The boys did eventually make multiple trips to the pump to fill some buckets and add more water to the moat. But they knew that the bucket wasn’t the best tool for the initial phase of moat construction. Silly me!

This is just another example of the importance of giving young children sufficient time to engage in deep play and problem-solving (without any interference from those of us who think we have all of the answers), as well as the importance of loose parts in creative play.

Look at the delight on their faces! Okay, so the castle architect on the far right in the photo below seems to be grimacing at the weight of the load, but the other two look pretty thrilled with the success of their mission!

When we look at children playing in sand, what are WE missing? They are busy designing, creating, collaborating and communicating. They are adding and subtracting, working with shapes and molds and inclines and declines. They are adding water to change the nature of their building material. They are using spatial awareness and math and science vocabulary. They are theorizing, hypothesizing and collecting data. They are engineering and deepening their knowledge—all while playing in a box of sand!

This is the ultimate in STEM learning. Give them as much time as they need. Let them play. Add fabric to your play centers. You never know where their outdoor play will lead them—and what YOU may learn in the process!

“Sally, look!  My rock turned purple!” Three-year-old Eleanor can’t contain her excitement as she changes the color of a rock with her paintbrush. Ah, the joy of painting rocks with water. Yes, water!

I will be the first to admit that I really wanted to be the educator who LOVED paint and easels and smocks and all of the joy that it gave me on the one day of the month that I actually got to use those paints when I was in kindergarten myself. Yes, I wanted to be that educator!

But I discovered long ago that my vision of paint utopia was unrealistic, which made me feel like a failure of a preschool teacher. I have made peace with my aversion to thick, gloppy, messy poster paints and moved on to watercolors. I’ve perfected the art of keeping them all together in a bag and whipping them out with a flourish to entertain my early learners on a snowy Monday, feeling like a rockstar of an educator. Well, sort of, but not really. The unvarnished truth is that paint is just not my favorite medium.

But there is one kind of painting that I really like—and that is painting outdoors with water. If you struggle with the mess that seems to be an inescapable part of painting or your landscape looks different as we navigate the global pandemic, then welcome to my water paint party! Regardless of the age or developmental stage of your students, this kind of painting doesn’t get old. Simply dig out the paintbrushes and a water source and let the celebration begin. You will never, ever go wrong with water play of any kind! On hot or dreary days, just bring out the resources, including whatever you need to document the learning standards that you’ll meet, because this is going to be a hands-on, brain-building bonanza!

It took me years to figure out how to keep everything in one place for easy access when the mood strikes. Paint rollers or paintbrushes from leftover family paint projects work extremely well. Those bigger brushes and rollers are really great for building the strength and muscles in the hands, wrists and arms, which will make handwriting easier when the time is right. No need to rush that. We’re too busy painting with water, baby!

Wondering how to get started? Use what you have! There is no need to make a purchase for this activity. We like to start out small with younger children. I have all of these supplies from my earlier attempts at what I thought my paint play should look like. Setting the stage with simple materials like paintbrushes and water creates an environment that allows children to become curious scientific researchers.

“Will the rock fit in the paintbrush hole in the cup?” Scientific investigation going on right there!

“Wait! My rock isn’t purple anymore!” Eleanor has been so busy painting other rocks that she has just made her way back to her favorite rock. As her friends gather around for a closer inspection, four-year-old Noah says with a giggle, “It evaporated!”

Wow! It’s always a delight when friends can lead the learning with one giant vocabulary word like EVAPORATE!

“Watch. If I paint here on the sidewalk, it will disappear,” Noah adds. “The sun dries it up. It evaporates!”

Without a sound, the whole gang begins painting the sidewalk to see if their watery brushstrokes will evaporate as well. This is hands-on, child-led learning at it’s finest. So much is happening in this moment. We have children using their leadership and language skills and mentoring their friends. We have scientific inquiry happening at their level of understanding. We have PLAY!

Don’t be surprised if the sidewalk, chairs, tables or other loose parts make their way into this adventure. It’s fun to watch their brains light up with observations, predictions and cause-and-effect scenarios as the water changes each surface it touches. Preschool children have an innate passion to investigate and make sense of the world around them. By integrating science and mathematical discoveries into their play, we are giving them a strong foundation and understanding of their world.

As the children in the group begin to express wonder and share their observations, the water play generally takes on a life of its own. By bringing in buckets and pans of water, along with a collection of pouring cups and pitchers, we can extend the learning into the mathematical world of quantities, estimation and volume. All of this is data analysis. It may not yet be recorded on paper, depending on the development of your group, but you are planting the seeds for this activity in the coming years.

Add this to your toolbox of outdoor learning.

Of course, we often bring this activity indoors as well—usually in the early spring, when the snow won’t melt and the sun won’t shine.  My indoor setup usually looks something like this:

It’s a great crabby Monday activity that will surely lighten the mood in your classroom. Happy water painting!