North Star Academy

 

 

 

Over the past year, we have visited with our teachers and watched the students interact with the outdoor learning centers on each of our four playgrounds.

On our toddler playground we added many more digging tools and buckets as their primary joy is to fill and dump the sand and wood chips. We also added more loose musical instruments because the ones that we had attached to the chain link fence were just an incentive for them to pull and hang on them.

On our early preschool playground, we regularly add sand to their digging area, and recently added large construction vehicles for the children to play with. We totally rebuilt the surround for the digging area on the pre-school play ground because the tree logs that we originally used were deteriorating. We used cedar boards to build a surround that would also offer a seating area for the children. Finally on the older playground, we rebuilt the digging areas as well with the cedar boards. Instead of making one single digging area, we built two separate areas, one with sand and the other with pea gravel.

We are in the process of researching and brainstorming waist add more music instruments to all of our playgrounds in a cost effective manner. The kids have absolutely love the outdoor learning centers. The favorites have consistently been the digging area and the loose materials. We have children building homes, stores, pretend camp fires, and so much more.