Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Pirate Day!

As a finale to the inaugural year of Froggy Holler Outdoor Preschool (what?! oh my goodness time flies!) we celebrated with Pirate Day at the beach! We started off hunting for another letterbox at Richmond Beach, the Beach Fairy box. 
Then we were off running:
The kids LOVED their time at the beach today. As seen in this collage they were really into crawling like a bear, trying to dig up clams, smiling their faces off, and investigating sea anemones: 
Ivy created this impressive work of art:
And we played tough pirates (and read silly pirate books too!):
And even found pirate treasure!!!
What a wonderful way to end our frogtastic year together! I loved teaching these kiddos outside this year and learned so much alongside them, I really hope I'll get to teach them in FH Outdoor Kindergarten next year!

Friday, June 10, 2011

Letterboxing ~ Friday

At our last Friday session in Hamlin the kids took charge of the areas we explored. So we ventured to an excavation site:
Discovered a letterboxing treasure:
Machete chopped our way through some dense scotchbroom jungles:
And back out again:
It was an adventurous day!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Letterboxing in Hamlin ~ Tuesday

As a fun activity for our last day at Hamlin Park for the year I thought I'd introduce the kids to letter boxing. I gave each student a little notebook, we used our froggy stamps and with clues I'd gotten online we hunted for and found the Hamlin Park Box #1.
 
After each kiddo got a stamp in his/her new book, we added ours and hid the box again. Letterboxing is such a fun way to explore local, regional, and even further afield parks. I highly recommend checking out all the spots you can find them at letterboxing.org. After our letterboxing stint we had a cozy picnic and story time in a sheltered spot nearby.
Then we had to stop off at sliding rock.
And then the kids voted to head over to another favorite spot, "The Maple Pancake Factory"!
Featured on the menu here was a madrona pancake with pine needle syrup.
There we spent a fun time climbing the tree (aka boat) and taking adventures together.
We've all had a wonderful time really connecting to this park this year and I'm happy to have rediscovered so many new areas with the classes here.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Kruckeberg Botanical Gardens

Our Friday class got to take a field trip to the Kruckeberg Botanical Gardens today. We participated in their Garden Tots program which was focused this week on tree cones. So the kids and Toni (Ian's Mom who was there to help in this quiet space ;)) went on a cone hunt while we explored the gardens.   
We all enjoyed the garden art, especially this fella:
And these eyeglass dragonflies:
And after we'd gathered up a variety of cones we headed up the hill to create cone sculptures:
It is a lovely program and I highly recommend Garden Tots to anyone who has young children in the area!