As Adventurers, we love playing outside. We always have a hike or two on the weekly agenda and we have already paid several visits to the heart-shaped rock hidden in the woods on campus. During remote learning in the fall, we learned how a hollowed-out orange could become a bird feeder and that stringing Cheerios on a pipe cleaner could become one too. When winter began, we used our newly-found skills to stock the woods with feeders to keep our woodland creatures fed through the cold months.
All year we’ve braved wind and rain, so we felt especially lucky when the snow finally moved in and covered the hills of our playground. Donning hats, gloves, scarves, and even the rarely-seen set of earmuffs, we spent a couple of days exploring the icy white snow that transformed our familiar playspace into something magical and new. Our slide became a luge, our hill a ski slope, and the frozen water around our big tree a “place for squirrels and birds to ice skate.” Not only is snow just flat-out FUN, it engages all of our senses and invites learning through exploration. Does breaking ice make a really cool sound? Yes. Do we feel the icy water underneath flow through our gloves onto our fingers? Surely. Will we risk chilly fingers to do it all again? Absolutely.