Campus Orienteering

We have been moving outdoors all around the campus building our vocabulary, awareness of space, ability to recall places–all foundational experiences for symbolic representation through maps.  Commands like “Meet me at the bench on the other side of Chaney Field,” “Go to the place where the first graders planted the potatoes,” and “Who can lead us to the weeping cherry tree?” are opportunities to move and be outside, yet are embedded with real information and present children with both the chance to utilize what they know and the expectation that they will find their way around the environment.  Playing in different spaces has a definite effect on the type of play, too.  Playing on the back hill and on the paths in the woods is exciting, a little scary, forces one to adapt to terrain, notice branches above, below, and beside, and inspires the imagination.  The boys have been crawling up and down the hill like Spiderman!  We count 1,2,3, Go! in as many languages as we can think of and run (or roll) down the hill together joyfully.