Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

We are starting to get a hint of spring around here. The sun has been shining for the past couple of days. It is clear that even though we woke up to a couple of inches of fresh snow this morning- spring could really be on the way! Rediscovering the Mud Pie Kitchen In addition to discovering all of our spaces that have been hidden under the snow for months- we have started to assess what needs to be repaired, reworked, and make plans for new components in our outdoor classroom. One of the things we started (and I what I mean by started is- we bought the trees) last fall is our movable forest.  A movable forest? Yes- a movable forest. Last year at the U.P. Early Childhood Conference I had the opportunity to meet and hear Rusty Keeler speak. (If you are not familiar with Rusty's work, I encourage you to hop on over to his website and check it out!) Rusty does a lot of work with natural playspaces and he reminded - me that young children have a very differe...

I attended an AMAZING workshop while I was at the MIAEYC conference in Grand Rapids. The presenters shared all kinds of great ideas for sprucing up your science activities. (I'm sure I will be referring back to this workshop for quite some time.) What I really loved about it was that the presenters had so many photos and activities that are simple and are easily integrated into any setting. (I apologize for the poor photos to start. Unfortunately, my camera did not like the lighting in the presentation room, so my photos from Grand Rapids did not turn out well at all.) Basically, you take 3 cardboard boxes, cut round holes in them to make homes for your "tree critters", paint them and hook them together.  At the workshop, I was told that they tried a variety of different things as branches, but what worked the best was to use actual branches/sticks.  We drew our circles and used a box cutter to carve out our circles.  We decided to use brown, green, and black ...