Brooklyn Park Nature Preschool

On today’s menu: wild rice soup with chocolate. Yum!

It’s windy but we’re making the most of it! We’ve had so much fun with kites. It’s been a great way for our students to practice patience, turn taking, teamwork, and problem solving. We’ve also really been having fun in the mud, learning about ducks and geese, and watching the birds that have returned to our pond.

Sticks are one of the most versatile things in nature when it comes to play. Conversations happening in this photo:
Teacher - “It looks like you are enjoying these big sticks”
Student - “They’re our food! We’re collecting sticks because we’re hibernating!”
Student - “Yeah, like bears!”

So fun to see conversations and learning from the fall carrying over into play in the spring.

Oh the weather outside is… muddy!! It might not be fun to wash the muddy gear, but our kids love to explore mud and puddles. If you’re not quite up to letting your own child go full on in the mud, start small with a bowl of mud and a paint brush or some garden tools. Lots of ways to start small!

It’s maple syrup season! We tapped some trees around our school grounds and we’re hoping to get to walk our students through the whole process. They were such great helpers with measuring the trees, drilling holes, pounding in taps, and hanging buckets.

Come out to visit Ms. Missy at Norwood Park and join us for some winter activities.

Such a fun day hiking around our space and looking for animal signs. We saw squirrel tracks, sticks with the bottom bark eaten off, s**t, an animal home dig into the ground, and a bird nest. It’s so great to remember that you do not need to travel far from home or away from an urban area to fully experience nature. There is so much happening right in your back yard.

Brooklyn Park Nature Preschool updated their information in their About section.

It’s so exciting to find tracks in the snow. They can tell such a story about what is going on in nature. We saw mama and baby tracks together. We saw squirrel tracks with spots where it stopped to bury or look for food. We saw where birds swooped down and their wings brushed the snow. They are definitely more than just footprints.

We love winter around here but on a day like today it’s nice to dream about tshirts and green grass. Bundle up everyone, it’s a chilly one!

Roasting marshmallows like a pro!

We took our first trip to the ravine today! We explored the tall grass, under the bridge, the pond, and the wooded area. The kids had a scavenger hunt to guide their exploration as well as lots of free time.

We explored a sunflower today! We used tongs and tweezers to pull out the seeds and find what else was inside. It was a great fine motor activity and we had awesome conversations about discovery, exploring, and being scientists.

Seeing some good teamwork today!

Working on our scissor skills today! This is an activity that is easy to break down into simple steps. Some things we say when teaching cutting are
“Thumb in the big hole and two fingers in the big hole”

“Thumbs up”

“Open and shut, open and shut”

When first working on scissor skills it’s great to give kids a piece of paper and just show them how to snip the edges. Snipping lets them get used to the motion of the scissors and doesn’t require the hand holding the paper to do much (no turning, etc). There is also no pressure for accuracy as when cutting on a line.

Once they’ve mastered that you can move to short straight lines, then curved lines, then zigzag lines, and then shapes.

Giving kids old magazines, especially ones with fun pictures like toys, can be a great way to motivate them to practice.

Working together to rake up some leaves! This is a great activity to practice team work and agree on a plan. Kids frequently have different ideas for how big the pile should be, when it’s okay to jump in, and who should do what job. It’s so fun to hear them talking and bargaining and learning to compromise.

Working on our letters with play dough. Two students did this all on their own with no suggestions or direction from teachers.

We have a Monday/Wednesday afternoon class that will be starting Nov. 1st and we'd love to have you join! Please call 763-493-8333 for information or to register!

We are making apple sauce today! The kids helped us peel and core the apples, cut out any brown spots, cut them into chunks, put them in the crock pot, and add the other ingredients. It will cook in the crock pot today and we’ll use an old fashioned sieve to strain it before we eat it on Friday. Our kids decided it’s a lot of work to make apple sauce!

We’ve been doing a pollinator study this week and today we explored our garden looking for pollinators. We saw lots of bees and we even got a good look at their pollen sacs (circled here). This is where some bees store pollen they have collected.

Working on balance! We were discovering some benches are stable and some are wobbly. We also discovered a log that rocked back and forth. A great opportunity for balance but also listening to our bodies and finding our comfort levels. A great example of appropriate risk taking.

We had so much fun finding worms today! The kids did a great job of taking turns holding it and gently passing it between hands. After a few kids found one even more wanted to join and dig for more. We also read the book Worm Weather which was a great addition.