I put this on my schedule, knowing full well that November could mess with my plans! I had to move it around a few days but today the weather was willing to cooperate with me.
First we talked a lot about the word nature and what it meant. They had some very interesting concepts of what nature was. Then we read a few books. A few favorites were: We’re Going on a Nature Hike, The Hike and We Walk Through the Forest
Then we scrambled things up a bit and took a nature walk! They were thrilled. I gave them each a brown paper bag and told them we were going to collect “bits of nature” -pine cones, twigs, leaves and the like. A few rocks and giant sticks tried to make their way back inside as well, but the whole point of the paper bag was that it had to FIT inside the paper bag in order to come inside.
Once we were inside, they emptied their bags of treasure, I poured some of my trusty washable paint and they dipped their nature finds and made “prints” of their treasures. Some were a bit apprehensive as they wanted to bring the items home with them, not paint with them, but they all got the concept and made some pretty cool designs.
Tangled Thoughts 