Nets and Rubber Duckies

Water water and more water! What to do? Give preschoolers small brooms and how will they use them? How about making up a game to see where they can push the water to? Here they are working together to see where the water will go!

Since we had a rubber ducky day last week (sorry I was out of town-so no blog about that fine duck day)
I brought in my nets to teach the kids about current-following our sticks in the current day on tuesday. As you know-in nature you never know what to expect. This goes with children's nature and our weather. Since the rain has been pounding down-the stream was high and moving. But in this spot-still moving quite slow and still not too deep. So the kids were able to put the ducks (and 2 rubber fish) upstream and then catch them as they moved downstream. We had some kids who were the catchall at the bridge (we did almost lose a lone duck under the bridge-but Teacher Jen saved the day with running downstream with a net to catch it before it was lost forever.)

There were wet mittens and gloves and water in boots and very happy kids. Everyone was very focused and excited.

In spite of the February chill, everyone played in the water for about 45 minutes before us teachers decided we better get the kids hiking to warm them up. We went on a fast hike through the forest, up and down hills - the kids running ahead, laughing and talking. There were no complaints of being wet or cold ( we did pass out extra hand warmers-removed wet mittens) and made it back for a quick lunch.

Lessons learned? Stream speed changes when there is more water. More water in the streams when it rains. Eye-hand coordination. Working together. Sharing (there were a lot of duck hoarders) Listening, following instructions (how to hold the nets so no one got beamed -no one did!) Use of tools-and respect for the tools-(no digging with the nets, beging careful not to rip the mesh.