Guest Post: How to celebrate Spring - Icelandic Style!

This post is from the wonderful Unnur from Leikskóilinn Stekkjarás in Hafnarfjördur, Iceland. I have been so fortunate to visit Unnur in her school twice now and each time her enthusiasm and great attitude have been infectious. Here is a wonderful little post about how they let the children celebrate the warmer Spring weather, keep active and there is lots of problem solving & collaboration happening too. (As Unnur said herself: "Hopefully the pictures will tell you a little story as well")

'Get the hat/scarf out of the tree' - such a simple game!

Spring greetings from Iceland.  Yes we are optimistic here and the first sign is when we go into the woods and play the 'Get my hat out of the tree' game. We have played this game for a couple of years now and it is always fun time and a sign that the children are waiting to go out to play without winter jackets. 

The game is normally played around a tree that is either dead or about to be chopped down. So we need to throw our hats as high up in the tree as possible and either shake the tree if it is a tree that is going to be chopped down or if the tree is still in good condition then we go and find some long sticks and take turns in getting our hats down.  

 

Sometimes we need to ask a friend to help if we can't reach and sometimes we need to help a friend to find a better angle to get the hat down.

A fun thing to do when the we don't bring anything with us to the woods except good humour and warm things like hats & scarves that aren't needed.

Hope you all have a good Spring. 

Unna 

Introducing two year olds to the wider outdoors - guest post from Iceland.

This post is written by Unnur Henrysdottir, a preschool colleague from Hafnarfjordur in Iceland who I was fortunate enough to connect with over 4 years ago and have subsequently visited on 2 occasions. She is an inspiring practitioner and has been so kind to give us a little glimpse into how she introduces her youngest pupils to the wider outdoor experience beyond the playground.

Lesley ( from Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School)  Unnur & myself in Reykjavik last October.

Unnur writes: Here is a little inside into our trips with the youngest students in my class to the woods.This year my class has four different age groups and the youngest in the group are just two, so even though the walk to our woods is not that long it can be little difficult for short feet fully clothed in thick winter overalls. 

 My motto is to go and explore, have fun and maybe come back with some stones or sticks if we are lucky. With the younger children, rather than go on the same day every week we go when the weather is decent.  The older group goes every Tuesday, good weather or not. In the big woods were we take the older children to, it's full of places with trees to crawl between and places to get lost. So instead of going there and feeling like I would be stopping the younger ones from exploring what ever they want to I was lucky enough to find a more open space for us to practice. 

There are still some trees to use, there is a mysterious house/cabin there with a door but no keyhole so how do we go about opening this mysterious door?  And there is a big fish tank there full of gravel to play with. There is even a big trolley there to sit in and play with.

We always take our school trolley with us and in that we put things like drinks, snacks and few things to play with, like dices, magnifying glasses, a white cloth to write on or use to look at things we find and would like to explore better. It is always good when you can go out to play and explore and follow the children's curiosity. 

I find that because we keep going to the same place, we find the children get confident in what they are going to do and are more capable of taking on new challenges which is what I like to see with my group. 

Until next time best regards from us in Blásteinn Iceland 

You can follow more of the adventures of this wonderful preschool here over on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Stekkjarás-leikskóli-344648402319950/

Guest Post - Making Maths Matter!

Delighted to have the incredible Elaine Bennett as a guest on the blog today - here is her post on how to make maths an exciting and 'real' topic for young children.

Hands up...who has ever trudged down to the maths cupboard to sign out the box of 3D plastic shapes before so that they can "do" 3D shape?

Well this week, we have been looking at shapes in our daily magic maths sessions. We started by looking at the flat shapes on our rug which we cant pick up and then looked at the 3D solid shapes which we can. We began with the plastic ones and the children looked at them and we talked about what they could be in our lives. The plastic cylinder became a rolling pin, telescope, nose and can of coke. The pyramid became a mountain. The cube became a box, a present, a robots head, a dice. Another day we put a shape in each hoop and I gave the children classroom objects to match to the shapes. The point I am trying to make is that we need to make sure that we provide the opportunities for children to see maths in their worlds, their lives, to see the patterns, relationships and connections. I wasn't expecting them to pick up the mathematical names....but they started to use them, recognising our deputy head teacher badge was a cuboid and her buttons were cylinders and not circles.

Today we went on a shape hunt outside and I was blown away. The children were highly motivated and engaged, excitedly making connections in their world, their environment. Seeing the planks they climb on are cuboids, our door strips are bendy cuboids, a stick is a cylinder, the wheels on the bikes we ride are cylinders, the 6 square waffle bricks together make a cube and that cylinders had been cut in half to make our ampi theatre..as whole ones wouldn't have lined up as neatly. Excited yells of "Mrs Bennett I found a cuboid! Cube! Cylinder!" filled the air.

Boys in the willow den realised there was a square was at the top inside of it and took a photo on the ipad. By this time we were late for lunch. As we walked along the corridor lights, tiles, windows, doors, mosiacs and even our dinner tables proved fascinating to the children! It was honestly like they were seeing things they pass everyday with new eyes.Leading me to exclaim "Our whole world is made of shapes!" 

I guess my point is that we need to make sure that children see maths as important, relevant and meaningful. We need to provide the opportunities for them to make the connections, see the links, patterns and relationships. We need them to see that they are surrounded by maths....it involves them. It is LIFE! 

Maths is ultimately about these patterns, relationships, links and connections whether they relate to numbers, measures or shapes. Children who can recognise and use these patterns are our learners who feel truly connected to maths.

In years gone by I would have called children over to "learn" shapes, using the box from the maths cupboard and a ticklist to complete of "who knows shapes". What I was really teaching them is that maths is abstract, plastic, brightly coloured, led by an adult, and happens at this table. This will only switch off learners.

Ironically that list wouldn't really tell me if they "knew" 3D shape.

So if and when you use the plastic shapes, when you take them back to the cupboard, don't take the learning back there to be placed on a shelf alongside the dog eared box with sphere thats broken in two! Ironically the shapes we used were not designed for children to actually explore as the cones bottom fell off! 

NB Depsite my plastic shape bashing, I cannot recommend highly enough the magnetic polydron sets, which whilst pricey are brilliant for exploring shape!http://www.polydron.co.uk/magnetic-polydron.html

Thanks to Elaine for this post & make sure you follow Keeping Early Years Unique on Facebook and @Keep_EYs_Unique on Twitter.

Recycling Christmas Trees!

Christmas tree branches soaking up the mud!

A few years ago we had a very wet Autumn and with constant use, the grass area in the playground turned to mud, it wasn't fun to use anymore as the children kept slipping over and getting plastered in mud every time they wanted to use this part of the space. In a social media group I was in, someone mentioned recycling old Christmas trees as a good 'floor' for a muddy forest area and so I decided to try this too. 
A parent who worked at the local recycling centre arrived one day with a load of cut up Christmas trees for us to spread around the grass muddy area. It worked brilliantly, the mud was soaked up and there was a gorgeous smell as the children trampled the branches into the ground. We also had instant loose parts, as the children incorporated the branches, cones & sticks into their play. When the branches had lost their leaves we were left with a real forest feel to the area and now 3 years on, the children actually refer to it as the forest. Some days when the children are playing in there, it is hard to remember it is just a part of our playground and not an actual forest area!

As our old forest 'floor' had begun to break down I put out an appeal for any old Christmas trees earlier this week & got three, one was already chopped up, I cut up the second but the third was the largest one - given to us by the Parent Council - as it brought over late in the day I just left it in the fire circle area and planned to cut it up the next morning. 

The children however had other ideas - as soon as they saw it they wanted to climb into it & water it! I chopped the top off and some of the taller branches but left the rest of the tree intact for several of them to enjoy playing with all morning.

So much fun to be had 'riding' on a Christmas tree!

I had just cut off the top of the second tree and left it as a mini tree that the children could move about - it was funny to watch as it moved around the playground over the 4 days.

The chopped up branches were used to make soups, stews and juice!

The plan is to cut the big tree up a bit more and take the branches up to Bear Woods to create some loose parts for den building, the children asked if it could stay in the fire circle until we need to move it to light the fire so I may leave the bulk of the tree in the forest area for the children to play around. 

Icelandic fun with Christmas trees.

You might also enjoy this wonderful guest post that Unnur Henrys did over on Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School's blog on what the children in her Icelandic preschool got up to with their old Christmas trees.
http://takomacooperativeschool.org/the-blog/2014/01/the-christmas-tree-playiceland-guest-post?rq=Iceland

I've linked this post up to Life Unexpected's Whatever the Weather Wednesday link - pop over to see lots more inspiring outdoor ideas.

Outdoor Play Party - Guest Post from Growing Inch By Inch.

For the latest Outdoor Play Party I am delighted to welcome Jessica Lewis Owner & Lead Teacher at Growing Inch by Inch Preschool in Maine. Jessica and I have been friends through social media for a couple of years now and I love watching the adventures her charges get up to in all weathers.Here Jessica celebrates the start of Spring after a long, long snowy Winter!

I could take a million pictures and videos of the children playing in their rain suits.  

I could watch them all day long.   

To me, those suits represent the feeling of freedom. 

Free from the snow and the long winter! 

Free to be wild and messy! 

Free to discover and explore! 

Something about those rain suits gives the children the freedom to be children!  Free to laugh and have fun! 

And that is something I could watch forever! 

My favourite post from the last link up was from a lovely new blog to me: Hen Family: I loved this post about how to enjoy being outdoors all year round; Getting Outside in All Seasons.

"Now it’s time for this week’s Outdoor Play Party. We would appreciate it if you included a link back to this post (either in your post or sidebar) to help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play! In return, we’ll gladly further share your post on Pinterest. Please feel free to grab the Outdoor Play Party button from the sidebar and/or include a text link back. Please note that by contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished if featured.(If you have been featured, please feel free to grab the ‘featured at’ button from the sidebar.) Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week!"

An InLinkz Link-up

Outdoor Play Party - Managing Risk.

I am so delighted to have Unnur Henrys writing this post. Unnur is a preschool teacher in our partner school Leikskólinn Stekkjarás in Iceland. Here she talks about managing risk with young children & proves that if we trust the children they will rarely put themselves in danger & are more than capable of assessing what is an appropriate risk.

Playing in the snow and Managing Risk. 

I have been reading a few articles about managing risk with children and outdoor learning. I am lucky in the sense that we don't have to fill out any forms or do a Risk Assessment before we set out on our adventures in the woods. We don't even know where we are going most of the time. That decision is made by the children when we come to the cross roads as we call it and vote whether we go to the Wolf forest, container forest, stone bridge, big stone or the kids-grove. The children have come up with all these names over time on our travels through the areas we use. There was a lot of snow outside today, we normally go with a big trolly with a lot of different stuff in it but this day there was nothing brought with us so  we needed to play with the snow and what we found in the woods. This was a day that I as a teacher had to close my mouth and let the children experience and manage the risk on our trip. It was a group of 27 children but this time the group decided to go to two different places and I had the privilege to be with a small group in container forest which is also very close to the stone bridge and a little stream that is always popular. 

Instead of saying 'no we can't go to the stream' I decided to let the children decide for themselves if, what or how we could play there. They were quick to find out that they didn't want to fall in and get wet because it was cold. When we got to the stream they started off throwing some snow in to the stream to watch it melt . Then there was a bit of a competition who could get the biggest ice brick to throw in, I asked them if we could all get a ice brick and see what would happen and someone said that we had made a little glacier. We found some sticks and started to poke them into the snow and ice around the stream, it was very tempting to warn them to be careful but I decided that it was for them to manage the risk there, what was the worst that could happen? Someone would get wet and as I am a teacher prepared for everything I have a full set of dry clothes in my bag  so I said nothing.

There is a bigger pond not too far away and the children asked if we could go there when there was enough ice on it to skate so I asked how do we know if it is safe? And they were quick to answer; first we find a big stone and throw on the ice then you (me the teacher) test the ice so we don't fall into the water. I promised to let them know when I thought it would be a good idea to go and check the pond, they certainly hadn't forgotten about the fun we had last winter on the ice (see my blog post about this from last winter) 

 http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2014/01/guest-post-playiceland-on-ice.html

My favourite post from the link up last time was from The Way he Plays all about celebrating a first birthday party in the lovely sunshine and given that it has been so cold here, I loved looking at the beautiful blue skies in this post.

"Now it’s time for this week’s Outdoor Play Party. We would appreciate it if you included a link back to this post (either in your post or sidebar) to help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play! In return, we’ll gladly further share your post on Pinterest. Please feel free to grab the Outdoor Play Party button from the sidebar and/or include a text link back. Please note that by contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished if featured.(If you have been featured, please feel free to grab the ‘featured at’ button from the sidebar.) Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week!"

An InLinkz Link-up