A new sign for Bear Woods.

Look at the wonderful sign that Peter from An Creagán made for our wooded/wild area. I can't wait to see the reaction of the children when they see it next week.

Outdoor Play Party - Pipes & Balls.

There are lots of must have resources for good quality outdoor play and one of them in my opinion are the gutter stands that are available in the UK from most if not all educational supplies. However I have to say all gutter stands are not equal - I have some really heavy good quality ones that are very robust & stand up to lots of pushing or shoving from the children without falling over. I have another set that are way to light weight to use on windy days & that are easily tipped over by the children. Sometimes I find a combination of the 2 sets works well on calm days. The pipes (or gutters) can be used with balls. water or boats & water. 

When I am setting up the pipes for play I use the tyres in the playground to mark off an area for 2 different runs to be set up, each going a different way. I use upturned milk crates to hold the balls at the start of each run & usually provide a stepping stone for the children to climb up onto to launch the balls down the pipes. At the other end sometimes a tyre collects the balls or a bilibo.

The children do knock the pipes off but I love watching them try to work out how to get it to all work again & sometimes they set up a far better run than I ever thought of!
On very wet days it can fun to set up the pipes & see how far the children can get the rain water from the water butt to travel along the playground.

Even though it was the first couple of weeks of 2014 & it has been bitterly cold & the US has been experiencing the worst weather it has seen in over 20 years, I was very heartened to see so many great outdoor play posts linked up. I loved this one from Creative Star Learning Company all about how a group of nursery children were allowed to negotiate a concrete slope & I especially loved the photo of one little girl returning to it again on her own & using all her new found skills & confidence to walk along it safely.

• Any kind of children's outdoor play-related posts are welcome!

We'd 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 Facebook/ Twitter/ 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' button from the sidebar.) Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week!

The 2 inevitable questions.

Whenever other practitioners come to visit our nursery to see how we 'do' outdoor play everyday, there are always 2 questions they ask.
"How do you convince staff to go outside no matter what the weather?" and "What do you say to parents who tell you they want their child to stay inside because they aren't well enough to go outside?" 
Firstly it's not about convincing staff to go outside - it's really not an option! We provide suitable clothing for all staff (and students or visitors if need be) and as we start outside every day it's not up for discussion, it just happens. It is usually just 2 of us but some years we have extra staff & they soon see the advantages to going outside after a few days - honestly!

Outside but under the covered area.

The 2nd question amuses me because I haven't heard it in over 7 years now. I used to hear it a lot, especially when we did free flow play and the children had the option to be in or out. However once we started all going out or in at the same time it isn't an option either. How can I possible have 1 staff member inside with 1 child while another is outside with the other 25-26 children? More importantly when I did have a request to keep a child inside due to sickness I began to reply that if they were not well enough to go outside, they were not well enough to be in school. And that is the crux of the issue - if a child is honestly not well enough to be outside, properly wrapped up for an hour, then they shouldn't be in school anyway. Why would it be healthier for that child to be inside in a warm environment with all the other germs etc. circulating in the classroom?

But it all ultimately comes down to communication again, I take time to stress to parents when they first visit the school that we go outside everyday no matter what and again if they are successful in their application it is stressed at the introduction evening in the June prior to their child starting with us. I make it very clear that if their child is sick they should not be at school & that we will not be keeping any children inside because they are not well. As I said earlier, in the past 7 years no parent has even ever said this to me.

After a while being out  in the rain seems quite natural to everyone!

Then last week I came across this post from The Pine Project on why it is important that children are outside even on the coldest days. If you haven't already seen it please do click on the link to read this great article.

Last week we had a leader from a neighbouring playgroup come to visit to see how we 'do' outdoor play. She had requested to come on a Friday when she heard that we would be outdoors for at least 2.5 hours regardless of the weather. Yes, she inevitable asked those 2 questions but she also 'got' why we go outside no matter what. She could see that the children weren't in the least bit concerned by the rain or cold. We are very lucky to have a covered area where the children can get changed into their wellies & rain gear & play at a variety of activities, including snack) without choosing to go out in the rain etc. So as the morning unfolded Janice could see some getting on their wellies to go in the sand, others getting on the rain gear to play with the water (from the water butt) and go down the wet slide, explore the forest area of the playground and play with the pipes & balls that were out.
Then as we lit the fire most of the class got on their rain gear to sit around it & enjoy the apples we cooked on it, only 1 child chose not to do this but as he was still outside just under the cover this is perfectly OK.
Generally we find that after 2 weeks of going outside both the adults & children just accept it & more importantly so do the parents. 

Cooking on the fire.

The fire grill with wind shield, stain steel pan & the lid on the ground below.

For almost a year now we have been lighting a fire every Friday on our outdoor days (when we stay outside until lunchtime), last year our Board of Governors gave every teacher an amount of money over and above our normal annual requisition budget. I knew that I wanted to buy a Haba fire grill, I had seen them in action in 2 Scottish settings I had been lucky enough to visit & I also knew I could never normally justify spending that much money on a single piece of equipment. Ours was bought from Muddy Faces last January & it has certainly more than paid for itself a year later. Then the PTA, known as Family & Friends at my school agreed to buy some additional pieces for the fire grill e.g. a wind shield & big stainless steel pot. With the annual requisition allocation we bought a lid for the grill as well. 

The Haba Fire Grill comes complete with the grill pan.

So far with this years class we have cooked sausages for a party, popcorn & heated milk to make hot chocolate. On Fridays I make a seating circle around the fire so the children can enjoy watching the flames & sit chatting around the fire. It never ceases to amaze me that as soon as I start to set the fire the children will start to gather around the seats. Even if it is raining the children will just get on their waterproofs & sit on the log seats, usually on a Friday morning a lot of them have on their 'rain gear' anyway as they know they are outside for a longer period & get more engaged in water play or messy play.
I am always looking for easy recipes to use on the fire but more importantly ones that won't spoil appetites later at lunch. A few weeks ago Lesley from Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School was also looking for a healthy-ish recipe for a camp fire she was planning at her school. Martin from Highway Farm Activity Centre suggested baking apples with cinnamon, sugar & butter. This was declared delicious by all at Takoma Park, so I decided to try them for this weeks cooking activity. When the 3 of us were chatting about this Martin suggested adding some marshmallows too. 

Takoma Park's baked apples on the camp fire.

We have a great apple cutter that makes perfectly even slices so we used that to cut the apples & then the children added some sugar, a little butter & 2 mini marshmallows. (I forgot the cinnamon for the first 3-4, so decided to just ditch it this time)

We wrapped the little parcels of apple (we used 1/2 an apple for each child) in tinfoil and then lit the fire & put them on the grill. It had been raining on & off all morning & I did toy with bringing the fire in under the covered area but then it eased off enough to attempt lighting it in the usual spot. With the wind shield the rain was kept off the flames long enough for the apples to cook. The smell was amazing, it really did smell like apple crumble. 

They took about 20 mins to cook until they were softened & then a little while longer to cool down enough for the children to eat. 

Windmill's baked apples!

Of course as always some of the children didn't want to even try them, some didn't like them but then others ate about 3 portions! This was a great cooking activity & one we will be trying again after we had tried all the other recipes first!

Mini-mes - Iceland style.

The mini-mes in my setting

I love it when I can see ideas being shared around the globe & seeing children in other countries or settings enjoying the same things as my class. I introduced a set of Mini-mes to my class last month after seeing a post on the idea on ABC Does. During a weekly international staff meeting (as we have termed our weekly on line chats) Lesley from Takoma Park Cooperative Nursery School & I discussed how we really wanted needed to introduce this idea to our classes. It took me longer than I planned to use mine but it was worth the wait. (I wrote a short post on them here.) The children enjoy searching for 'their' block & it is very cute to watch them playing with a particular block if a child is absent that day - it almost provides a sense of comfort to them.

I also discovered that it has been an invaluable way for some children to learn their class mates names, I have several children this year with additional needs & recognising their peers has been a real issue for them but with the mini-mes we can make a game of it & they are able to gradually learn some if not all of the names. 

Icelandic mini-mes

When Unnur a colleague in our partner school in Iceland saw my post of the mini-mes, she headed off to make her own set & then in turn shared these photos with me. Unnur also had found that some children find comfort in playing with the mini-me of a friend if they were late or absent. 

I hope the mini-mes spread around the globe in 2014 & I have also got another idea from this Swedish blog Forskolan Syrennen of making blocks of the houses the children live in as well & maybe I could create family mini-mes!

Outdoor Play Party - Bikes

Happy New Year & here's to a whole year filled with plenty of great Outdoor Play ideas.

A few weeks ago I asked on my Facebook page if there were any topics people would like addressed in future posts. Amongst the great ideas I got (and wrote about here & here) was one on bikes - as in how to stop children just riding round & round on them.

The tyres create a barrier  & define 'the road' for the bikes to follow.

Honestly I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with bikes, they are brilliant in the first term as they are usually a great way for even the most reluctant child to make an initial parting from a parent/carer. Every year there are some children who you know are just dying to get a turn on a bike but aren't ready to leave their parents side. Over a couple of days as they settle in the bikes become invaluable in this subtle independence dance & it is often as a child whizzes round the playground that a parent can make that first tentative step away from their 3 year old. But the bikes are also such a source of conflict as obviously we can't have a bike for every child so there has to be lots of turn taking & patience. The egg timer comes into its own when bikes are out, usually starting out with the 3 minute one & building up to the 10 minute one as the term progresses.

We have created a kind of bike track using tyres & whilst it allows the children to go both ways they do have to follow a certain route & negotiate around tyres & the slides etc. our playground is not really that big & therefore to have most of it 'blocked' off for bikes is quite restrictive. However on really wet days bikes are what can entice even the most reluctant child to get on their wet gear & head off into the rain. This year I have managed to create a good bike track while still allowing for either a seating area for the fire on Fridays or a climbing area the other 4 days. 

A climbing or seating area with a bike track behind it.

Bikes that are made for multiple use in schools are also very heavy & lugging them in & out everyday is a killer on the back. Luckily we can leave them under the covered area at night when they are out for a couple of days in a row but some days they do have to be lifted back into the store. They also take up a lot of room in the store too.

Without being too critical, one of the saddest sights I hate to see in any setting is a painted circle/oblong set aside for bikes where children can only go round & round in 1 direction. It's much more useful for children to have to learn how to stop suddenly on a bike with no breaks or how to swerve to avoid crashing into someone else! 

We used to have 3 sets of bikes - one for each term (basically they gradually got bigger each term) but last year we took the decision to get rid of the set for the 3rd & final term - by passing them up to the next class in the main school. As I said our playground isn't the largest & we found that in the final term when we had the large hollow blocks out & with the better weather, we preferred to have the space set aside for more spread out play & that the bikes weren't get any use. Also most children now have bikes at home & don't need one in school to learn how to pedal & even those who don't pedal naturally in 1st term are all able to do so by the end of the 2nd term.

So bikes are a necessary evil in my opinion but not one that we miss in the last 8 weeks of term!

The final OPP from 2013 had some great posts linked up but I chose this one from The Boy and Me for many reasons, this fellow blogger has been so supportive of my own blog all year, always linking up & taking the time to leave comments on my post but also because I have really enjoyed her own outdoor play journey this year. This post on how The Boy entertained himself outside in the garden in the lead up to Christmas was my favourite, just seeing him pushing himself to the limit on every day play equipment made my day. 

• Any kind of children's outdoor play-related posts are welcome!

We'd 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 Facebook/ Twitter/ 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' button from the sidebar.) Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week!

Being Critical yet not Criticising.

In the past 9 years I have been so fortunate to have the opportunity to visit preschool settings around Europe & further afield, mostly through the British Council's Comenius programme but also through a GTCNI CPD bursary & the generosity of Fafu.
I have been able to witness practice first hand in the following countries: Italy, Poland, Norway, France, Sweden, Turkey, Scotland & Iceland.
Through on-line project work & social media I have also been able to get a glimpse into settings around the world.
If I have learned one thing from these opportunities it is that it is OK to look at other settings with a critical eye in order to see what I can take away from another place but it is not OK to criticise what I see, merely because it's not what I would do.

Every setting is unique no matter if they have similar resources or even buidlings. I found it very weird that most of the kindergartens in areas of Europe that were under the rule of the former USSR are all in the same standard buildings but no matter how similar things may look the fact that the children & staff are all individuals will mean that no 2 places will ever actually be the same.

I am an optimist by nature so no matter what I will always look for something positive to take away from every experience and in fact I have found that it is actually more disheartening to visit somewhere that you are overwhelmed by & end up feeling like my own setting can't achieve any of it. I'd rather come away from visiting another classroom feeling positive about my own!

So whilst I may not like my classroom set up to be as formal as I found it to be in Poland or France, that is not to say that I have a right to start being negative about the practice in either country. I have never seen such creativity as I did in both places that I visited, as the schools had very little money for posters or wall displays etc. yet those teachers had come up with amazing ideas of how to make sure they used everyday objects to make their rooms as attractive as possible.

It is so easy to look at a photograph from another setting & make a snap judgment on what you see, yet let's be honest how much can anyone really tell from a photo? Usually the person taking it knows the whole background story to the end result but it's hard to convey that in a photo. I had people comment very negatively once on a photo of some children standing on a stone structure, it did look like the stones were leaning but of course they were 100's of years old & very, very structurally sound. However to anyone just glancing at the photo it looked like the stones were leaning & ready to fall but seriously what kind of person would I be if I let children climb on an unsafe structure just to get a good photo! 

Everyone has their own experience in mind when they look at photos or see another setting but we have to be careful we aren't judging others based on how we operate or on rules & guidance we have to adhere to. 

My advice is to view the opportunity to see around another setting as a privilege, you are getting a look into another world & try to get as much out of it as you can. In my own experience it can be weeks, months or even years afterwards that you may be able to recall something you saw & replicate it in your own setting. Never dismiss anything because you feel it would never work in your setting, it might not work right now but who knows someday you might be able to. 

In 2006 when I sat in a forest in Norway watching children sitting around a fire whittling sticks & enjoying hot chocolate I never imagined that 4 years later I could offer similar experiences in my own setting.

So embrace chances to glimpse into settings around the world either virtually through social media or in person through various funding opportunities or just by networking but try not to criticise fellow practitioners, we are all on the same team!