Nature Area Mini Scenes

The major portion of our most recent playroom renovation took place back in April – read about it here.

There were some smaller projects – both indoors and out – that I planned to work on as time permitted throughout the spring and summer. One of these was the mini-scenes in the nature area. They were originally built back in November of 2011 (wow, doesn’t seem like it was that long ago).

Last year I wrote a post about how the children were using – or rather NOT using – the mini scenes. That post is here.

The original mini scenes were created using scrap lumber and was attached directly to the wall. The decorations also were attached to or painted on the wall and shelves. This made it difficult for me to modify or repair them when necessary.

Last winter we decided we needed to put a heater in the nature area because it does get cold in there. In order to put the heater under the window we would have to move the shelves – perfect time to rebuild them.

This time I planned to build free standing shelf units that, although they are attached to the wall for stability, can be moved. The decorations are now attached to panels that fit in the shelves. This way we can change the mini scenes panels later without taking the whole unit apart.

The new scenes are slightly larger than the old ones and the heater separates the ‘indoor’ house section from the ‘outdoor’ scenes. It is impossible to get all of the nature area in one photo but this is an overhead view of the new nature area – it shows the shelves and the floor space but not any of the trees;

The ‘bridge over the river’ is also the stool the toddlers use to look out the window. My daughter sewed the felt logs and fire for me – I don’t like sewing but that is another post.

These are closer shots of the shelves – ‘The Forest’, ‘The Meadow/Garden’, and ‘The Beach';

‘The 2nd Forest’ (would be the jungle if I had other decorations), the ‘Winter’ scene, and the ‘Underwater’ scene;

The house scenes are still a work in progress. I started decorating but there is some more furniture I want to make and I want to add a bathroom too – bathrooms are the children’s favorite rooms;

I will be adding some windows and other decorations – winter projects. I considered cutting a whole in the back of the kitchen shelf because the ‘real’ window is directly behind this shelf so there could be a ‘real’ view from the dollhouse kitchen window. My husband muttered some comment about a ‘sickness’ that he thinks I have…I’ll just paint the kitchen window like I was planning to do in the other rooms.

The new scenes have been very popular. When we are inside there are always children playing here. There are many different toys the children can use here but they particularly like the dolls I recently purchased from Quality Classrooms;

It has been difficult to take pictures of the children playing here because it is a small space for the six or seven children that like to congregate here. I’ll keep trying. I’ll also post some more pictures when I have added more decorations and furniture. As usual it will never be ‘finished’ but it will continue to evolve like all our other spaces.

The Store

We've had a covered seating area in the yard for several years. It was originally built to cover the BBQ and benches were added later after we no longer used it for the BBQ. Over the years the configuration of the benches and the position of the entire structure has changed.

Most recently we moved the benches to one long side and added a fold-out table to the other long side by the storage box. Both ends are open and the decking provides a bridge-like walkway from the grass area to the gravel area.

This summer the children have decided that this area is 'The Store'.

Every day 'customers' line up in the grass area by the 'counter' and a 'store clerk' stands on the walkway and gives the customers the items that they request.  The items are always imaginary and the clerk sometimes has to search on/under the benches for quite a while before finding just the right items.

Often the customers are very specific when placing their orders.  "I would like a small green rubber ball with yellow stripes and pink dots."  The clerk cannot always find the exact item but will offer substitutions. "I can't find one with pink dots but this one has yellow stripes and purple dots.  Is that OK?"

This store is a magical place carrying almost anything you can imagine.  One of the favorite items is 'A hamster...in a cage.'  The customer placing that order always pauses briefly before adding the cage as if they are not certain if they want/need the cage too.

Yesterday there were three children playing in the store.  The three-year-old was the clerk and the two almost-two-year-old children were the customers.  The clerk asked 'What would you like?' and one toddler replied 'Apple' so the clerk handed over an imaginary apple.  The other toddler held out her hand and asked for an apple too.  The clerk said 'Sorry, no more apples today.  The store is closed.' and she walked away. 

That was how the riot began.  Two toddlers screaming at each other, pushing and grabbing an invisible apple from the others hand.  I tried to offer them another apple......

Silence....

The two toddlers looked at me.  They turned and looked at each other and then looked at me again.  They seemed confused. 'Who is this crazy person and does she really think there is an apple in her hand?  Does she realize that we see only air?  Back away slowly and maybe she will not follow us.'  

United they retreat to the other side of the yard, whispering to each other and looking over at me.  I'm standing alone at the store - wondering what is wrong with my apple....I thought it was a perfectly wonderful apple....

Creative Summertime Freeplay

This has been a quiet summer.  Quiet meaning the children have needed very little direction from me.  This year’s group is very independent which has left me plenty of time for observation.
Indoors the trains have been neatly organized in the tubes instead of the block bin with the train tracks.  It was not my idea but I like it :-)

That is the only indoor picture that I have because we’ve been playing outside most of the time.
All the loose parts have provided endless opportunities for creativity and symbolic play.  These ‘eggs’ are neatly arranged by size;

Of course there were many picnics and restaurants;

The little tree cookies were used to create paths between and around the larger stumps;

There was an ice cream shop with a wide variety of menu choices;

A grand pony expedition – I love that these children can use action figures creatively without following a movie script;

There was also an elaborate dramatic play activity involving the whole group.  The main characters were ‘sabre tooth grizzly birds’ and since I had trouble envisioning what they would look like I asked for a picture of one;

This picture was made possible thanks to an accessible outdoor art area.

I also asked them to make a list of art items they’d like to have available.  There is plenty of paper so I was a little surprised by the size of the list they made;

Even our outdoor snack time has been a creative activity;

And finally, this little pine cone family has been waiting patiently all weekend.

I wonder what they will be doing when the children return…

Spiders & Others

We have more spiders in the yard than we have ever had before.  There are webs everywhere.  This one in the hyssop is catching all the flower bits;

There are some with built in homes – the spiders disappear into the holes when we get close;

Sometimes the children try to rescue the other insects that get trapped in the webs.  They usually give up quickly – those webs are sticky!

We have some other – unwelcome – visitors too.  Our ornamental cabbage is being eaten;

We have six of them in the garden and planters.  I showed the children how to look for the cabbage caterpillars that were causing all the damage.  There were so many of them.  The children were excited – an endless supply of ‘loose parts’.

All week there were caterpillar schools and caterpillar day cares and the girls even tried potty training some caterpillars. I have no pictures – don’t ask.

By Thursday there were no more caterpillars.  The girls were very disappointed.  However, I was quite pleased that the cabbages are now free of pests ;-)

Exploration

The bees love the giant hyssop in the garden and the children love to watch the busy bees.  Yesterday we were excited to have a new visitor who stayed for most of the morning;

The children have been busy too, there are so many new spaces to explore in our yard.  The toys and loose parts are now spread out around the yard so the storage area isn’t so congested.

One of my vacation projects was to re-purpose our old rain barrels into loose parts storage bins. The two that cracked this past winter are now located in the North-East corner of the gravel area;

The oldest water barrel – which has been waiting for years to get a new purpose – now stores all the larger pieces of scrap lumber.  It is located in the South-West corner of the yard by the tipi.

This ‘new yard space’ was created in what used to be the parking area and is now the children’s favourite space.

The toy bin is in the South-East part of the gravel area.  I’ve trimmed the lower branches off the cedars and this is where the babies like to play.

I took some close-up pictures of various objects in the yard and used them to create ‘Where-Am-I’ cards.  The children enjoyed searching the new spaces to locate each item on their card.

These are also useful for learning to recognize our plants by the shape/colour of their leaves or the texture of their bark.

Most recently the upper deck has been transformed into a outdoor art area.  Yesterday was the first time the older children got to use it during quiet time when the little ones were napping.

We’ve enjoyed exploring all the new spaces and are looking forward to many more adventures.

Looking Back

It is Monday morning and as I await the arrival of the first child I am reviewing on the things we were able to accomplish over the past two weeks.  First, I must admit that my ‘vacation’ actually felt very long. I think that is due in part to the fact that we didn’t just have one major project that took up a huge chunk of time.

This year we had several small/medium sized projects to tackle over the summer and chose to start with the biggest ones during my two week vacation.  The remaining items can be done on evenings and weekends.

We started by moving the fence to rearrange the parking and play areas.  This was the biggest job but it took only three days.  Really, it could have been done on a single long weekend.  I will write a separate post about the new outdoor space so for now there are no pictures.

The second largest job was the outdoor art area.  It is not entirely complete yet but the major work is done.  There will be no pictures until the finishes are complete.

We also planned to re-insulate the drafty basement wall.  This is a project we have wanted to tackle since we moved in here more than 17 years ago.  It meant moving all my toy storage so it was also the perfect time to re-organize the bins.  For all of the past two weeks the playroom and basement have looked like this;

This is the task that I disliked but it had to be done.  I didn’t get everything back in place until 9:30 pm last evening.  Now I’m eager for winter to arrive but only so I can feel how much warmer it will be down there.  I am happy that all the toys are organized now – just have to make new bin labels;

All the 25 of the quiet time and table toys mini bins are organized now too.  It was an ongoing project throughout the past two weeks.  I had planned to work on it only on rainy/cold days when we couldn’t work outside.  However, the weather was fabulous for almost all of my vacation so I had to ‘waste’ some time indoors.

Some of the smaller projects included rebuilding the library book shelves and the music/workshop area shelves.  There are still a few playroom modifications that I hope to complete in the next few weeks yet.  The biggest one will be the nature area mini scenes.

My vacation wasn’t all work though – in fact, I did absolutely no paperwork at all.  I still have plenty of paperwork to do.  My desk is covered in it but I didn’t do any of it.  Malta claimed my empty chair as her favorite kitty napping spot but I couldn’t persuade her to finish my work for me.

We replaced the two old cracked rain barrels with new ones from Fort Whyte Alive – which of course meant we had to go on a nature hike while we were out there.  I also got to spend some time working in the garden but I must admit that my native prairie plants really don’t need much work.

There are a few bare spots because the Fringed Brome and the Gaillardia didn’t come up this spring and the sawflies destroyed the Wild Columbine.  I missed the plant sales at Living Prairie Museum earlier this year and had hoped to make the trek out to Prairie Flora during my vacation but that was one of the things I didn’t manage to do.

Sadly I didn’t get out to Quality Classrooms either – they are not open Saturdays so I can only go there during my vacation.  I did make a trip out to Carman for a day.  It was for my Aunt’s funeral but it was nice to see all my cousins and reminisce about spending my childhood summers on their farm.

Also managed to get my hair cut – twice – so it is now shorter than it has been for the last 40+ years.  I had lunch with my mom and she loves my new hairstyle – it is similar to the pixie cuts she used to make me get when I was little.

That’s enough looking back for now.  It is time to go watch the children explore the new spaces and make discoveries.

Summer Holidays

So, today is the last day before my ‘holiday’ begins.  As usual I have a HUGE list of projects to complete this summer.  Some of them are smaller projects that will be done on weekends.

The ‘big’ project will involve rearranging the parking area, moving the fence,  and an overhaul of the gravel area and loose parts storage.  I wrote about the plans last Spring – read about it here.  We already built/moved the sheds but ran out of time last summer to complete the project.

I’ve had nearly a full week with my new summer group and it was wonderful.  Everyone is settling in to our routine and the lack of a school-defined schedule has greatly improved the ‘flow’ of the day.

Outside I have all the new stumps stored in the corner of the yard waiting until the yard project begins.  Interestingly, the older children have deemed this to be the ‘perfect cooking spot’.  Hmmm, I’ll have to modify my plans a little so we can continue to accommodate this;

The old stumps are still as popular as ever.  The lone boy in the group seems somewhat concerned about all the climbing and jumping about.

Later he put on the construction helmet and did this;

‘No climbing here’ :-)

I found a dead moth and gave it to the insect lovers.

Turns out it wasn’t dead – just injured – so it was rushed to the emergency room. For nearly an hour a team of dedicated medical personnel worked to save the moth – or at least make it a little more comfortable.  Here is his x-ray/chart;

As excited a I am about all the renovations I have planned for the next two weeks I am also going to miss these kinds of activities too.  However, I’m certain we’ll have many more adventures when we return.