practicing our abcs outside

I believe that being outside, hanging out with nature, is good for the body, brain and soul.

I know that I am very blessed to live in a town on the ocean, with forests out our backdoor.  And  even more blessed that my school has a huge school yard with hills, a garden and a big forested area.  

We play outside ...  exploring, running, making games, digging holes, climbing, pretending ... every day.

One of my goals for this school year was to bring more of our structured, focused learning outside.

Today, we brought a wee bit of literacy outside. We made a nature letter museum.  (A tip of my cap to Juliet from I'm a Teacher Get Me OUTSIDE Here.)

We brainstormed what we could use from the forest to make the first letters of our names.  We were pretty limited  to leaves, sticks and pinecones.  Pinecones being the hands down material of choice.

this young man spent over half an hour sounding out and making pine cone words

Check out some of the exhibits in our Letter Museum.

After making our letters, we got down to the serious business of playing with sticks, rocks and leaves, running, jumping, chasing - the serious business of childhood.