Wild Oak Explorers

We love hearing these swallowtail kites!! They are enjoying the wind so much this morning. If you enlarge the first picture, you will see one with only one tail. There's so many questions regarding that one but I do believe it was like this last year as well after going through pictures.

☀️

Yes!!!! I hear so much that they're not learning anything, they're only playing. If you get down on their level, let go of whatever expectations that someone assigned to kids, and really observe, you will see what they are really learning because not everything is about academics.

When is a mud kitchen, not a mud kitchen?

When it’s filled with a smorgasbord of different textures and resources.

When you introduce sand, mud, petals grass cuttings, used tea bags and other natural resources into the outdoors kitchens you are stepping into a goldmine for sensory and multimodal learning.💚
More than just mud

In early childhood development, “modalities” refer to the different pathways children use to take in information, express themselves, and understand the world.

By intentionally leaning into these modalities, you can turn simple messy play into a powerful, whole brain learning experience. ❤️

▪️Sensory modalities
Tactile/Touch, Visual/Sight, Auditory/Hearing, Olfactory/Smell,
Gustatory/Taste, not recommended 🫣

▪️Kinesthetic Modality (Gross and fine motor movement, physical actions)

▪️Linguistic Modality (Spoken and written language, vocabulary)

▪️Textual Modality (Signs, labels, menus, and print awareness)

▪️Symbolic/Mathematical Modality (Numbers, counting, measuring, and representations)

It’s more than just a mud kitchen. The magic happens when you combine modalities. Mix it up, combine, remove the limitations.

When a child squishes sand between their fingers (tactile), describes it as “damp” (linguistic), and counts out three stone “meatballs” to put on top (mathematical), their brain is making massive, interconnected leaps in development. ❤️🎉

What will you add to your ‘texture or sensory ‘ kitchen ?

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Images from Knighton Day Nursery

Last day of the school year. I hope everyone can say that it was an epic day!! They got to ride bikes and pedal cars on the trails, archery, slingshot, gaga ball, then over to the lake for swimming and playing on the obstacle course!!!

We are grateful for yet another partnership. This one with the Boys and Girls club and to use their property next year on Wednesdays. Keep an eye out for more information!!

Our last day at the farm this school year. Thursday is a field trip. owner, Tina, started off our day with a nature walk with the goats, then to the hammocks. They loved that experience! Mud kitchen play then back to the front for lunch. Afterwards, they enjoyed Italian ice, then they dug through hundreds of pictures from the year to create their own photo albums!!

The day ended with the neighbor stopping in to say how much they enjoyed sitting on their porch and watching the kids play and just be themselves. There's one particular that has enjoyed building a little fort out of sticks with help from friends.

Do you agree? We do!!

“The goal of early childhood education should be to activate a child’s own natural desire to learn.”
-Maria Montessori

As to say Happy Mother's Day with a few food drops 🥰

This looks amazing!!!

A well-known study from Natural Resources Institute Finland, published in Science Advances, investigated how nature-based playgrounds affect children’s health. In this 28-day experiment, researchers modified urban daycare yards by adding forest soil, grass, and plants, and observed around 75 children aged 3–5. Compared to children playing in standard urban environments (with gravel or artificial surfaces), those exposed to natural materials showed a noticeable increase in the diversity of beneficial microbes on their skin and in their gut.

These microbial changes were linked to improvements in immune system function, including higher levels of immune-regulating cells such as T-cells and better balance in immune responses. However, the study did not claim a dramatic or instant “boost” in overall health; instead, it showed early signs of improved immune regulation, which may help protect against inflammatory and autoimmune conditions over time. The findings suggest that regular contact with natural environments can play an important role in supporting children’s developing immune systems.