Our play area offers lots of shade...

Hanging out with a good friend!

Carrying the snack box

Tiger loves to help....

Working together...

Some of the best summer times are just sitting around talking together....what an interesting group of children I am blessed to work with.

I don't put out a lot of new work during the summer months but the children still enjoy their favourites.

Silver polishing....

Digger made a continent necklace using continent punchwork.

Working with the collage tray...

The "Big Lego Box"

When we have a day when it is raining heavily we do a longer movement and music circle then bring out the Lego.

The Nature Tray

Iish is having a good look at a dragonfly wing.

Bead sequencing is getting a revival.

Dino has been working on writing his name. Today I gave him a plastic sheet to put over his name card and some colourful wipe-off markers......he loved it.

Cutting out animal/plant pictures to make a food chain.

Peanut still enjoys working with the 100 board.

Rhubarb leaf rain hats...

A little work before lunch...

Let's go on a insect hunt!

Playing snakes and ladders...

Making the number line to 100

Punchwork.....

Our compost bin is full of what we think are cantaloupe plants....we have decided to let them grow in there....I wonder what will happen.

Iish watered our peas...

The excitement of the day....

The water truck came to fill up the swimming pool. They really were more excited than they look in this picture. The were most impressed how Brent from Brent Haulage put his work away so neatly when he was done. Tiger remarked "Ready for someone else to use."

We are spending most of our time outside each day but here are a few things we have been doing during our inside time.

Iish is making a Play Doh map of Africa.....I am thinking a Play Doh world map would be a cool work this fall. I have noticed my older students starting to add rivers and mountains on their Play Doh maps.

Naming the sandpaper letters by feel...

The older children still enjoy using the sandpaper letters for this game...

For the younger children who are still learning their letters it is a fun game they can play with an older friend.

Bean built math bead pyramids....

the children decided to match the uppercase and lowercase letters

Ladybugs on a leaf print...

An anthill print..

these two art activities are from this book....that has went really well with our study of insects and spiders.

Painting takes on a whole new feel outside...

Our vegetable garden is growing well

peas

tomatoes.

Summer days are for creative play....

We went on a nature hike to look for insects....

Tiger really got into racing...

Lots of fun riding down the slope today....

Everyone helped to spread the blanket for snack and circle this morning......

Today we learned about beetles.

We went on a beetle hunt. We found lots of ant colonlies under the rocks but no beetles.

They finally found a beetle...a dead June Bug. No one wondered why it wasn't moving and everyone had a good look.

This is the first week of summer term. During the summer we spend most of our time outside playing, exploring, and gardening.

We are learning about insects for a couple of weeks. Today our focus was on aquatic insects, so we set off for a small pond to explore.

Dip netting fun!

We are very fortunate to have this wetland close by. It is fed by a natural spring and is very shallow; just perfect for preschoolers to explore.

We found lots of tadpoles, a water boatman, a whirlijig beetle, a water insect that I can't find a picture to match it too, and a very skinny water worm. We set up two aquariums, keeping the tadpoles apart from the larvae as they are most likely carnivorous.

African animals at the waterhole...