Outdoor Classrooms Garden Talk

Garden Talk is a collection of your comments from a variety of Seedling posts. Reflecting and sharing the good work Natural Teachers are doing to reconnect children and nature is vital.

Welcome to Outdoor Classroom Garden Talk!

“ I love the idea of including literature. It is a great way to focus the children’s interests. It gives us a common goal to start our observations and collections. I imagine all of us running to a log to turn it over. Thank you for a simple place to start.”

” Your gardens are beautifuL, full of color and hope. Our children are hopeful for our garden as well. We came back to school after the weekend to find a mound of seedlings in our sandbox. At first we thought they were watermelons from spit out seeds, but thinking back to the fall, we had a dozen pumpkins in our outdoor classroom. The children toted them all over, in wagons and in their arms. Could the seeds have germinated in our sandbox? We transplanted them into our garden. We will have to wait and see what comes up.”

” I received a $1000. grant to add an Outdoor Musical learning station in my Outdoor classroom. I am so excited to add this component over the summer. The list is endless. Bringing the students & learning outdoors is amazing. I am also pleased to say that our classroom has been awarded an 2016 Excellence in Education Award. I can’t wait to see where the future takes this the project!”

“Last week we had a dirt table in the classroom. I brought out a bucket of dirt for our raised bed on the playground. With seeds. One of the kids talked to me about how the clouds were going to water the seeds as he played in the dirt. Poking holes in the dirt as he talked to me about doing it as he observed me doing it to plant the seeds. Another child from the other infant/toddler classroom came over with a dump truck and began to put the soil into the dump truck to dump. At the same time her face glowed as she handled the soil and spent more time playing in the soil than scooping it out into the dump truck. As hard as it was for me to let go of the fact that the seeds may have been removed (or at least a few) the joy the kids have playing in the dirt is priceless.”

What is happening in your Outdoor Classroom? How are your children interacting with their environment? Share in the comments below! I love hearing from you.