Programs & Groups : Prairie Preschool Companions
Adventure for preschoolers and their caregivers. Puppets, stories, activities, and songs in our comfortable museum, outside, in a tipi, or in a pioneer sod house. Get out of the house and into our native landscape while you learn together! Programs are designed for children ages 2-5, accompanied by an adult. Younger children may attend at no cost with siblings; please be respectful of others enjoying the program. Cost:
Insects and Spiders Insects are creatures that share the prairie, our neighborhood, and often our homes with us. These small creatures are very important to the prairie ecosystem and they are an ideal way to help young children understand the importance of respecting animals. Our interest in insects can help engage young learners in learning about nature and the outdoors as well. Join us on: June 3 rd and 4th Insect or Not? June 10 th and 11 th Butterflies June 17 th and 18th Grasshoppers June 24 th and 25 th Spiders The goal of environmental education is to help people make responsible choices about the environment. Many of the decisions we make that affect the environment, are decisions we face as adults. However, young children are facing decisions about the environment too. Everyday, young children have opportunities to treat the environment with respect by being gentle with the plants and animals they come in contact with. Educational researchers agree that “children need to have a role model who can guide them in their decision making.” (from Tadpoles and Tough Questions by Carole Basile and Cameron White). One way that we can promote respect for nature in young children is to show respect for insects, especially when they are in their natural habitat. When you encounter insects inside or outside consider talking to your young learner about where insects live and belong and how we can show respect for insects when they are in their habitat. Check out the book, “Hey, Little Ant” by Phillip and Hannah Hoose. It is a wonderful story about an ant, a boy, and a decision. The story helps learners look at the world from an ant's point of view and develop decision making skills. Readers are left to answer the question of how to treat the ant on their own.
Insect or Not? This month as we are exploring insects we will be using some of the same props each week. You will probably see small plastic insects each week for children to play with. Encourage your young learner to look at the characteristics that the insects share and the characteristics that are different. Young children need opportunities for both novelty and routine. Children in the preschool years like familiar activities and materials because of the feeling of mastery and competence, but they also like to experience new things in familiar ways and familiar things in new ways. Encourage your young learner to use puppets and other station materials that we use frequently in new ways this month to explore insects!
Prairie Preschool Survey We are receiving some wonderful feedback from the survey that was sent out to all Prairie Preschool families and we will be using the information to help make suggestions and changes to improve the program. Thank you to everyone who took the time to send us your comments! Your time and feedback is greatly appreciated. If you haven't had time to fill out the survey yet, we would still love to get your feedback! Please send us your comments before June 15 th . You can access the survey from the following link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=vwYi4CH6HkVhPWeoPuLA1g_3d_3d Nature's Classroom in your Neighborhood Activities to Extend Learning Environmental Education research has shown that an adult's involvement and interest in nature goes a long way toward helping children develop their own environmental ethic and interest. Help cultivate your child's interest at home with these activities: In the backyard or in the park, look for insects of different colors. See who can spot a certain color insect first. The person who spots the insect can pick the next color you look for. Look for different insects in your neighborhood or yard. Can you find insects that hop? Can you find insects that crawl? Can you find insects that fly? Play follow the leader Insect style. If you see a grasshopper, move like the grasshopper. Jump like the grasshopper until you see another insect and can change the way you move. Backyard Dig Find a part of the yard where it is okay to dig. Dig a small hole and look through handfuls of soil for the insects or other creatures living inside. What do you find? How many legs does it have? How many body parts does it have? What color is it? Count how many insects you find in your yard. Sketch It: Insect bodies Use a piece of cardboard to make your own clipboard. Use a rubber band to hold a piece of paper in place and head outside to draw some insects or evidence of insects. Find an insect and draw it. Draw its body (3 parts) and its six legs. What else can you draw to show what the insect looks like? You might want to draw evidence of insects you find. You can look for holes in leaves or bark where insects have been eating. Looking for more ways to get outdoors with your preschooler? Check out the National Wildlife Federation's website, The Green Hour at www.greenhour.org. The website offers activities to do with children and plenty of opportunities to converse with other parents and educators about the importance of taking kids outdoors. Comments and Feedback What do you think about the Prairie Preschool Program? Please email me with any comments you have. I would love to hear about the things your child liked or disliked. We are always looking for ways to make the program better, so any suggestions are welcome. Email me at ktnavin@yahoo.com or call 303-693-3379
May 2008: Teaching Respect with Plants Young children are often able to identify similar characteristics between plants and animals, but often have a hard time understanding that plants are living things (documented in research by John E. Opfer and Robert S. Siegler). This concept is important is developing respect for the natural world. Planting a garden with a young child or enlisting their help in caring for plants inside or outside the house can be a wonderful way to help cement the idea that plants need things to live and grow just like we do. Preschoolers can also help develop a sense of responsibility when they care for living things like plants or pets. Talk with your young learner about plants and their parts or characteristics, as well as what they do for us. Preschoolers can also learn to be gentle and respectful by the way they treat plants. Talk about when it is okay to pick plants and when it is not okay. Explain that some parks have rules asking you not to pick anything. Talk about how to water plants like they are receiving a gentle rain rather than a flood. Plants can teach preschoolers a lot about themselves, how to act in nature and how to act towards each other. Reminders • Remember to come dressed for the weather! You never know what the weather will be like in spring and we will be heading outside during each class. • We will have a variety of school groups visiting the center in May and some arrive right at 10:00. You may want to consider coming a few minutes early to look for books to take home or to explore the center before class. Announcements from Miss Katie There is a lot of excitement around Prairie Preschool. I did a presentation at an Environmental Education Conference last week about the work that we have been doing. All the participants were very excited about the program and are taking ideas and resources back to their own centers. At the conference we talked about how important parents are to the success of the program. Research is showing that nature based experiences are critical to the development of children emotionally, physically, cognitively, and socially. I am so proud of all you for making nature and prairie experiences a priority for your children. I am very sad to announce that I will be leaving the Plains Center to work for the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education, an organization that supports and advocates for environmental education in schools, nature centers and other organizations throughout Colorado. I am very excited about the opportunities I will have to advance environmental education in the state, but I am very sad to leave the Prairie Preschool program. Preschool has been one of my favorite aspects of my work here at the Plains Center and I have enjoyed getting to know you and your families. I will be teaching several of the preschool classes through May 28 th and I plan to continue to be active at the Plains Center as a volunteer in some of the Saturday programming for families. I am very excited that Preschool has become such an important part of our programming that we will be hiring an early childhood educator whose position will be dedicated to preschool and family programming. I plan to be involved with the training and introduction of this new preschool teacher and I hope you will all continue to help with the program in the same wonderful way that you have with me. I will miss seeing you all every week, but I can always be reached at CAEE or you can contact me at my personal email address ( ktnavin@yahoo.com ). Please contact me with anything, especially questions about taking young learners outside! Thank you so much for a wonderful year and your amazing dedication to nature based-experiences for your children!
Nature's Classroom in your Neighborhood Activities to Extend Learning Environmental Education research has shown that an adult's involvement and interest in nature goes a long way toward helping children develop their own environmental ethic and interest. Help cultivate your child's interest at home with these activities: Look: Adopt a Plant Adopt a plant for the month of May. It could be a plant in the house, yard or at a local park, just be sure to choose a plant that you can visit at least once a week. For plants, spring is a time for growing. Some plants will be changing every day. Bring some yarn or string to measure your plant each week. Cut the string the same size as the plant. Does the string get longer each week? Is your plant growing? Can you see new leaves or flowers? Take your plant a treat of water each time you visit and enjoy watching it grow. Plant Shapes Look for different plants in the backyard or in the park. Can you move your body in the same way? Can you move your body to look like a tree with high spreading branches? Can you move to look like a sunflower stretching towards the sun? What other shapes do plants make? Grass Clippings Mowing season has started. Grass grows from the bottom instead of the top, like trees. That's why we can mow our grass every week and it will grow back. Talk to your young learner about how grass grows. When the grass starts looking a little long, send your young learner out with safety scissors to work on their fine motor skills and trim the grass. Use a Popsicle stick in the ground and mark how tall it is after your preschooler trims it. Check the height every couple of days. Is it growing? Talk about how you can use the grass clipping from the lawn mower. Think about putting some on the garden or making an art project with grass clippings and glue. Sketch It: Green Windows Use a piece of paperboard or cardstock to make your own green window. Cut out the center of the paperboard so it makes a frame or window. Take your window with you outside in the yard or to the park. Lay your window down on the ground and examine the plants and even the animals you find inside. What colors do you see? What shapes can you find? How big are the plants in your window? Take a clipboard and pencil with you and draw a picture of what you see!
April: Using our Senses 2008 April is a great month for exploring the outdoors! Not only is the weather warmer, but April is Children and Nature Awareness Month sponsored by the Children and Nature Network. Not only is the entire month of April dedicated to getting kids outside but there are a variety of special days devoted to celebrating nature. • April 13 th -19 th is National Environmental Education Week • April 19 th -27 th is National Wildlife Week • April 22 nd is Earth Day • April 25 th is National Arbor Day Celebrate the month of April by exploring and playing in nature! Join us at the Plains Center to explore and celebrate using all the senses. Using our Senses! Learning about the senses is a good way to help young children develop science and observational skills. It is important to help them recognize patterns and to develop language skills to describe what they observe. Not only is using the senses a good way to involve young children in learning about the environment around them, but it also aids in the development of wonder and respect for nature. Nature's Classroom in your Neighborhood Activities to Extend Learning Environmental Education research has shown that an adult's involvement and interest in nature goes a long way toward helping children develop their own environmental ethic and interest. Help cultivate your child's interest at home with these activities: Look: I Spy Play I-spy when you take a walk around the neighborhood or in a local park. Pick out things you see out side and describe them (i.e. I spy something tall and brown). Ask your young learner to guess what you are describing. Or play a guessing game. Young learners choose something that they see outdoors. Ask your learner yes or no questions about the object to try and guess what it is. (Is it bigger than a squirrel? Is it small than my hand? Is it green? Is it shaped like a circle?) By asking questions you will be encouraging your learner to look closer and make additional observations. Consider taking binoculars on your adventure outside. Check out this great article from Green Hour about choosing the right binoculars for kids. ( http://www.greenhour.org/content/blog/detail/3788/ ). Mystery Objects Bring an old sock with a butter tub or other open mouthed container stuffed in the bottom on your next walk outside. Take turns picking out objects and putting them inside the sock without letting anyone else see. Use all your senses to guess the mystery object. Shake the object in the sock. What does it sound like? Close your eyes and smell the object. Reach inside and touch the object. Take a guess. What it is it? Last but not least, look at the object, what else can you find out about it? Meet a Tree On your next walk to the park, adopt a special tree. Close your eyes and use your senses to get to know it. Wrap your arms around it. Can you reach all the way around? Smell the tree. Feel the bark. Do your fingers fit inside the groves? Put your ear up to the tree and listen. What do you hear? Knock on the tree. What sound does it make? Look at the tree. Stand back and look at the shape and color. Don't forget to give your tree a name and come back to visit it! Sketch It: Magic Spots Find your own magic spot! Does your child have a favorite place in the yard or at the park? Make it your own magic spot. Sit down in your spot and use all your senses. Take a clipboard and draw what you see, hear, smell, and touch around you. If your spot is in your yard, make it your own. What can you sit on? Find some natural objects that are already on the ground to decorate your spot. Draw what you see on sunny days and cloudy days. How does your spot change through the seasons?
Past Activities Developing Observation Skills “Developing a child's observational skills is an important first step in science education. As students make observations, they are learning to collect and organize information. Observation leads to questions, which are the basis of inquiry. Questions lead to a search for answers by making inferences and then using more detailed observations and actual experiments to see if the inferences are true. Science is all about finding out “why.” (From Block Publishing Article Home School Hints: Developing Observation Skills http://www.blockpub.com/pages/ed/observation.html ) Observation involves using all the senses and so does looking for signs of animals. This month at Prairie Preschool and at home encourage learners to make observations on color, shape, texture, smell, sound, and even taste (if it is safe). Learners can also sort objects to develop both classification and observation skills. Give learners suggestions to sharpen their observation and encourage them to be creative and develop their own ideas. Look: Nest Hunt Take a walk around the neighborhood or in a local park and see if you can find any squirrel nests. Squirrels make their nests high up in trees and they look like clumps of dead leaves. Try looking in different ways. Look at you walk around or lay down on the ground underneath several trees. Are the nests easier to see? What other evidence of animals do you see? Sketch It Trying to draw something that you see can help you to see details. Encourage your young learner to draw something outside, at the park or even out the window of your house. Think about taking a shape outside and looking for something that has a similar shape. Draw what you see.
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Upcoming Schedule June: Insects and Spiders 3rd and 4th Insect or Not 10th and 11th Butterflies 17th and 18th Grasshoppers 24th and 25th Spiders July: Scales and Slime 1st and 2nd Turtles 8th and 9th Snakes 15th and 16th Salamanders 22nd and 23rd Frogs 29th and 30th Eggs August: What's Under Our Feet 5th and 6th Dirt 12th and 13th Rocks 19th and 20th Worms 26th and 27th Roots
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Every Tuesday & Wednesday |
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Fran Blanchard |
Serendipitous Saturdays The Plains Center is open to the public Saturdays
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Check these links for some great tips for a more sustainable lifestyle: Ten Big Things You Can Do for the Environment Wisconsin Foodshed Research Project Earth Friendly Cleaners Recycling, conservation and more Seafood Watch--Monterey Bay Aquarium |
The Plains Conservation Center is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Web Site Copyright © 2008 Plains Conservation Center. All Rights Reserved. |
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21901 E. Hampden Ave.