A Flurry of Activity

For the last week the weather here has been marvellous. I spent almost all of last weekend outdoors working on the yard and garden.  I’m hoping that the forecasted rain will hold off long enough that I can get some soil to complete the project this weekend.

This week the preschoolers and I have been spending all morning outside.  I feel sorry for the older children and the parents who must spend a large portion of their day indoors at work or school.  Even when our schedule dictates that we must be inside I see the children gathered around the open window, feeling the warm breeze and longing to be outside again.

The mornings have been cool and while some of the children (and I) wear shorts and T-shirts others have continued to choose to don sweaters before heading out to play.  After only a few minutes of active play in my South facing yard the sweaters are abandoned.  I’ve even had to open the umbrella and put up the sun shade to provide some shelter from the heat – I’m not complaining.

The precision jumping and follow the leader games have continued to be popular.  We’ve rearranged the stumps to form two circles – one on each side of the hill platform.  This creates a figure eight obstacle course.  The spacing between the tree stumps has been expanded since all of the children had mastered the smaller spacing used last year. Jumping from the platform to the logs is a new challenge.
 

  

  

Some of the children are unsure about jumping the distance from one log to the next so they complete the circles by jumping off one stump to the gravel between logs and then step up on the next log.  I was interested to notice that after some success at traveling around the circle, a few of the children began pushing their physical limits and trying to jump the huge distance across the circle.

   

 

The distance covered is impressive – so much further than what could be accomplished last summer.  I’m excited to see what new skills this summer will bring.