Nana’s Learning Post
This year we were blessed with grants for playground equipment and gardens. We were able to purchase climbers, but also a beautiful Outdoor Chime Wall, a beautiful Community Playthings Outlast Shed and Outlast Blocks. We already had a table for block building, and now we have a complete block area outdoors. So the big changes this year came to the block area, the music area, and increased gardens.
The garden grant allowed us to purchase raised beds, organic soil, plants, and garden tools, and watering cans. The children are learning about the plants that are growing, how plants grow and change and produce food. They check them every day to see changes and if anything is ready to be picked. Currently, we are in our Fall/Winter gardening time. In summer it is too hot in the heat of summer to be successful in the garden. Spring and Fall gardens work best in our area.
We also enlarged our Milkweek/Monarch Caterpillar section this year and were able to see many Monarch butterflies fly off to lay more caterpillar eggs.
We had two hurricanes come through our area this year. We had a lot of items to put away so they were not damaged, a lot of clean up, and then returning everything to its centers. We were so blessed to have our school children and neighbors who know we have an outdoor classroom help us put as much as we could away into our indoor classroom. Then after the storms, neighbors helped us clean up, and then our local church young group helped us carry things into their spaces. It was super helpful so we could be open to serve our children and families.
