Reflection on Chapter 8 & 9

Reflection of Chapter 8 &9 for blog .

Reading chapter 8 made me realize the importance and understanding of language development in children. As researchers have been working from the 1960’s through the 21^st century on the language development of children as a language socialization perspective, we see that children learn from active participation in a variety of language communities. For the past 10 years, researchers have begun thinking more about how social interaction and socio-cultural contexts affect the use and development of language among children. I strongly agree with this concept of children learning language and develop language skills through social interaction with children, teachers, and other children as well as from parents.

It is interesting to learn how family effects the child’s language development. Through language, children reveal what kind of circumstances and experiences they go through and activities they participate in at home. This reminds me of a child in my care who is exposed to superhero video games and movies, superhero toys and clothes with such prints. His father is fond of superheroes as well and plays with his son super hero games most of the time. I notice this young child acts and talks in super hero language and actions. children in class get exposed to such language and adopts certain words and actions that appeals to them. But then I noticed teachers and parent’s interaction can have some positive influence on children’s language development. It is also mentioned in this chapter about the importance of family mealtime talks. A child gets benefit from just being exposed to meal time discussions and need not actually be engaged in it. Beals (2001) found that the amount of narratives and exploratory talk children were exposed to at mealtime was positively related to later achievement in language and literacy.

I grew up in a family where meal times were always special and every one discussed all that is happening around in life and around as well as of everyone’s today’s events.. Every one at the table participated in the discussions .I myself, now do the same with my own children, and all of us look forward for the mealtimes together so we can discuss and share our thoughts and happenings of the day.

Since last decade emphasis on research on storybook reading and phonemics as well as of bilingual and multilingual education and family literacy program has been of interest among researchers. It is very true that children from different cultures bring along their language and literacy values with them that differ from other children. As our society is becoming more diverse we need to have more research done to support early childhood language education. My day care children learn many words and phrases in my language from me hearing me. Children learn other languages quickly and with interest and inquisitively, and it increases their vocabulary as well.

CHAPTER 9:

Chapter 9 explains about the emergent learning in children. Although the concept of emergent learning is very broad, and there are many factors that effect emergent learning . In emergent perspective, it is not seen that literacy learning is a series of reading skills, but rather as dynamic, ongoing process that begins before children even start their formal school education. It starts through the exposure of print related literacy material. Children learn and develop as readers and writers when they are exposed to print rich environment and from experiences with print that encourage engagement, experimentation, and risk-taking. Technology plays an important part in emergent learning as well. A study shows that children with mild to moderate disabilities working with graphics and story making software showed prominent results in communication and other emergent learning.

As children are exposed to much more technical tools of writing , drawing ,& talking . also gesturing, now a days. Which are all interrelated to support in the process of emergent learning.Children in my day care are exposed to different aspects of emergent learning spectrum, from very young age. Children have accessibility to book shelves and are read aloud as well. They tell stories and make their own books in which they try to write words in the form of lines and circles etc. make pictures of their stories. They make me write their stories which they dictate me. I encouraged children to read the already read stories to their friends and me. Some times some of my students enjoy to read their favorite books to their dolls and through the pictures in the book make their own story. I enjoy the way they read stories to their dolls and friends. We also cut out the alphabets on large construction paper and children color them, later we make words out of those letters. Children absorb semiotics of signs , symbols, prints, number, illustrations , and diagrams around them. It is interesting to watch children learning by being exposed to sounds, visual exposure to literary medium. Electronic emergent literacy is becoming very important in our lives now as well as children learn from other aspects of learning such as book reading,writing, phonological awareness, literate language they all enhance the growth of each other.

Project Progress: Parent/ Grand Parent involvment

Since last few months children and me have been working on our project of exploring nature and being outdoors. All the children have been enjoying the nature walks and have been interested in finding deer tracks and deer poop, chasing squirrels, watching birds and how birds are building nests, new blossoms, and leaves. The children have been interested in plants, going into a creek behind our house and enjoyed being outdoors in nature.
I thought of a project to make children aware of nature and appreciate preserving the environment for our own survival. Additionally, to give children the opportunity to make their own garden and physically get involved gardening. We planted a vegetable garden. Along with my guidance and help the children planned out the kind of plants they wanted to plant. They all agreed on planting peas, cucumber, tomatoes, bell peppers and I suggested zuccini, cilantro, mint and chillies. Children prepared the vegetable garden with me, planted vegetable plants. We discussed how to protect plants from deers and rabbits, and agreed to put fence around the vegetable garden. This was one of my student ,Ethan’s suggestion who is 3 ½ yrs old and his father plants vegetable garden and has put fence around his garden to protect from deer. Ethan’s prior experience and recommendations showed keen observation of his surroundings.The children have made a regular schedule of going to their garden and check on the plants.

I was excited to read Elizabeth Goodenough’s book, “A place for Play”, There is a sectionon pg.182, about the Edible Schoolyard project in Berkley, California. It also coincides with ouridea of vegetable garden project The Edible Schoolyard was the idea of Alice Waters of Chez Panisse. Alice water’s edible shoolyard was motivated by the need to improve children’s nutrition . Additionally, she helps children understand ecology by creating a garden and a teaching kitchen. She also to develops a healthy school lunch program of fresh servings from locally grown produce.
Similarly, I also recommend healthy eating in children from infancyVegetable gardens help children can learn about mother- nature and feel sense of accomplishment when they pick the vegetables from their garden. Secondly, gardening gives often sedentary children the opportunity to enjoy being in dirt, water and digging and taking out weeds and caring for their plants. During this learning process children recognize the elements we depend on for life; dirt, rocks, water, and plants. Similarly they incorporate science in their learning when; they need to identify which plants need support, which ones are wines, different leaf structures, and while differenciating between root plants and above-ground plants . They apply mathematics when they calculate distance among plants in rows, which fruits/vegetables grow in bunches, how tall are the plants etc. Planting gardens is a collective activity. As it is mentioned in “ A Place for Play”, “ It is rare in our culture for young people to be given the chance to create something tangible , to care for Earth, to choose the task they would like to do, and to learn to work together in a team.” Children in my group were deeply involved in this project and were excited to share their experiences with their parents. To get parents involved I invited them to
join us in our vegetable garden project and join the children in their outdoor play activity. Parents loved the idea and excitedly joined our play day. Children showed them their vegetable garden and what they have planted. Parents and children played outdoors together and enjoyed the lunch outdoors We did includ fresh vegetable salads in our lunch and fresh fruits ,along with vegetable pasta and dessert. This was the second part of the project and I wanted parents to enjoy what their children were learning from nature. Some of the parents brought floral and vegetable plants for children to plant in the vegetable garden. They brought marigolds to be planted around the vegetable garden and told children how marigolds keep the pesky deer away.
We are lucky to have very supportive parents who agreed with our project and are interested in joining us. In “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv, there is a report by The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that, “ the number of overweight children between ages two and five increased by almost 36% from 1989 to 1999 and a 60% increase in overweight adult Americans since 1991 to 2000. The “World Health Organization warns that the sedentary lifestyle is also a global public health problem, inactivity is seen as a major risk factor in non-communicable diseases, which cause 60% of global deaths and 47% of burden of disease”. Success in the second part of our project, which was getting parents involved into children’s experiencing nature and vegetable garden project encouraged me to proceed further, and the children and I planned to invite parents/Grandparents for a nature walk to the park. We organized a potluck picnic in the Rochester park to enjoy nature and to go for a walk on the paint creek trail. It was a great experience for children as well as for adults. Interacting with children and nature and we asked all the adults to tell us a story of their childhood times when they used to play outdoors. The parents thought back into their childhood and realized how much fun it is to being outdoors. The Fathers helped children feed the ducks, while the mothers took care of babies. and taking them for walk in strollers every one enjoyed being outdoors in wooded area and interact with nature as well as with their children. It was interesting to watch Grand parentsenjoying nature with their grand children.The children and I played a tree corner game.I use to play this game with my brothers in my young days in woods, everyone picks a tree close enough and one person is in the middle who is to catch others while they switch the tree posts. If he gets the tree, then the person who lost his post comes in the middle.It is a fun and full of movement and excitement game.
Children were amazed by the tall trees.They loved hugging them and tried to climb up on tall trunks. The chilren explored the inside of the hollow trunks of trees. They loved going on walks and being in water stream. They did float their slippers in the water and catching them.
As I was observing children experiencing nature, learning and feeling relaxed and joyous being outdoors; it reminded me of the growing concept of Forest schools in England and Scotland. In an observational research project the “ Learning outdoors: the forest School approach” by Liz O’Brien, the Forest Schools provide regular contact with the woodlands for extended periods of time. This allows the children to become familiar with the natural environment. A report for the National Foundation for Educational Research (Dillon et al. 2005) suggests that learning outdoors can impact the child cognitively, affective??, interpersonal/social communication and physically and behaviorally. As it is mentioned in this study, “Learning outdoors in nature is very different experience from being indoors in a classroom environment I observed while our project, experiencing nature and outdoor play, was progressing.[what did you observe, that the classroom environment is different than outdoor? if so explain how you observed that]

“Man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard;[the Lakota] knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too".

-Luther Standing Bear (c.1868-1939)

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As i shared the art work of young children with you and their expressions. i agree as it is mentioned in chapter 7 , that creativity of preschool children differs from that of schoolaged children.Pre school children's art work is purely authentic self-expression.It is not done to find solution to some problem or to reach some goal. I like the way author has explained the fourth grade" slump". It's very true that children by that age /stage have very much of structured environment in school and of formal education such as sitting in rows, raising hands before speaking, following specific rules of class and school and daily schedules. Being so much in structured environment curbs the orginality of a child by the time he reaches fourth grade. As it is mentioned in this chapter "conventional behavior is unlikely to be original, and described preschool children as preconventional because they did not produce the art that was a clear representation of reality-a kind of conventional thinking-but instead drew from their own prefrences and uninhibited feelings". I examined the art work of the little boy in my care who drew the picture of heart with hands and legs. and another boy who draws the pics of super heroes in his pics as well as he shows his super hero imaginations in his pretend play.Which coincides what Piaget (1962) says about imaginative play, as he also observed in preschoolers the peak of imaginative behavior. As we know that children's creativity is effected by many factors, one of the most strong factor is family.Parents are the first teachers of their children, they provide opportunities, resources,teach values to their child, as well as provide some structure in life. Children do need some unstructured time and freedom of expression to learn about themselves, but meanwhile they do need some structure and discipline as well in life. The idea of balance that was introduced in this chapter applies to discipline. If a child gets guidance and discipline by the parent along with some freedom, their creativity flourishes. As "Schmukler (1985) mentions in her discussion of , "facilitating family environment",she emphasized children' play and imagination as bases for creative skill." she also says that the development of child's creativity depends on opportunities of play and parent and mostly it is mothers who play an important role in the creative development of a child. Another thought in this chapter that i very much agree with is in context of children's creative development ," Wallach &Kogan,(1965) found that a permissive school environment allowed children to think divergently and creatively".Children do not perform well in test like environment, where as if they are asked same questions in non test like environment the results will be better. My son and daughter is very much stressed out when they have tests or exams. They will teach the same thing to other friendsvery well and they will get higher grades than my children, but when it comes to themself and giving tests they get exteremly stressed, which brings their scores litle down.Even when i put myself in their shoes i see myself stressed in test like environment.But same subject i will dicuss very confidently and with full understanding in normal environment.

chapter 17 very much coincides with chapter 7, as it does mention how much adult guidance is needed in providing opportunities and support to the child to be creative in play . If a teacher is there to support a child's creativity and provide opportunities that child will be a creative adult in life. As this chapter shows from it's title, 'creating play environment' children are again dependent of adult support and facilitation. Culture, family situations, society, accessibility to play grounds, finances, as well as environment effects play of a child.In chapter 17 it is discussed how important play is in child's life and it plays an important role in cognitive development of a child. i noticed children in my care, when we play outdoors children are very focussed and more calm as well as happy as compare being inside. Their attention span shortens indoors, they are less tolerant and gets irritated by other friends much quicker than while playing outdoors.Although they do play well indoors also and enjoy playing together. But the feeling of more free and independent outdoors i think make them more composed. As i read this chapter it was interesting to recognize how much children's play has been affected by the saftey issues, technology, and how much we now a days have confined our children into structure and supervised play. Children's play spaces should be where they can play and explore as well as they should have freedom of movement. Out door play is very beneficial for children's social and emotional development as well as for cognitive and academic development. Sobel (1993) believes that outdoor spaces for children should be away from adult viewing. children love to play in their secret places and hide in trees. They do not like to be observed by the adults all the time.while reading this chapter i came across the section of Gardening: on pg 316.Where it describes the benefits of gardening with children, and described gardening as an activity related to play environment, it is a work/play activity in which children do need direct assistance of their adults but it is fun for both children and adults. Where as children do learn to understand through gardening the relationship and connection man has with the universe. as said by (Brosterman,1997). "Gardens allow children to experience the cycles of nature and develop habits of responsibility and nurturance and allow children to find satisfaction in doing something useful (Ravkin, 1995)." As we did a project with children of planting a vegetable garden, I noticed children showed responsibility and care for earth. They did worry to water the plants every day, were concerned if worms going to harm the plant or not, looking at newly planted plants and watch them grow. It was interesting to see how coneccted they were with plants.

Reflection on Chapter7 and 17 of HandBook.And Progress in project.

With the progress in my project of bringing awareness of importance of nature and out door play in children's life. I got great incentive and feed back from these two chapters as i read them.It was interesting to learn how much emphasis is done in this chapter to let the children express their creativity. As we all understand being parents and early childhood educationists, children are very creative it's a matter of giving them opportunity. We see children's creativity in their pretend play ,art, etc as they express themselves in an unihibited fashion. Children learn to recognize their own uniqueness and the capabilities they possess through creative self expression. Although it is necessary for a child to express their creativity of thought and if children are not given opportunities or encouraged to utilize their imagination,explore possibilities,try new things,consider new actions,invent understandings, and experiment they will not be able to discover themselves and will not be able to handle the stress of peers, and other pressures of the world. For that matter parents and teachers together should be supportive to child's imaginative play and experimentation. as well as provide guidance,feedback and structure, and most of all appropriate values. As it is mentioned in this capter 7, "Parenting (and teaching,for that matter) is very much a matter of balance"(Runco& Gaynor,1993). I agree, children's creativity is affected by many different factors, such as culture, family, financial status of home, environment and also each individual's personality. As i see it in my day care every child expresses in their own way and i see the effects of their home life and culture in their art.Their temprament and stresses they have, happiness and fears. i also see their strong bond with their parents and extended family also their love for me. It is amazing how well children express themselves through art. Also it amazes me to see the creativity in art work of very young children. I have one child who is from broken family, half week he goes to dad and half week with mom, The stress he goes through and the love he has in his heart for his real dad and his step dad, is amazing. The way he expresses it in his stories ,that i ask them to tell a story while drawing a painting. another little guy always fear of dark night and always tells us in his pictures that he draws about dark night and always mentions someone dies. and later gets better and everything is fne.I love the creativity and expressions of these 3-5yrs old through their story telling and art. i want to share some of their art with you and their stories that i wrote while they were dictating it to me. enjoy and i will continue rest of my thoughts.

Chapter 6 of Hand book and chapter 10 of children's Experiences.

In this Chapter David L.Gallahue and John C. Ozmun beutifully explains what does development means.As it is the change in function over time. The change in cognitive,affective, and motor domains over passage of time. This chapter focusses on motor development of children which is defined as adaptive change in motor behavior across the life span of a normally developing child. It is important to understand motor development in terms of product and process. Knowledge of product is as the outcomes which provides us with the descriptive profiles of developmental change in motor behavior.Which also provides us information of "what" in motor development.such as what are stages of motor development etc. Knowledge of process as the underlying mechanism of motor development.Which explains "how" and "why" of motor development stages in children. As in table 6.1 on pg 106 gallahue's phases of motor development (2006) explains how movement skills become increasingly unpridictable with the change in phases of development. Such as reflexive movement phse of early infancy to the rdimentary movement phase of infancy and toddler hood,Fundamental movement phase of early childhood, and finally to the specialized phase of later childhood and beyond. In this chapter two aspects of motor development has been emphasized,1) Aquisition of fundamental Movement skills and 2)Children's Physical activity and Physical fitness. As Gallahue and Ozmun explains by getting children involved in different movement experiences can enhance their knowledge of their bodies and capabilities.With the experiences children gather they build the perceptions about themselves as well as world around them.

Sinclair(1973) did an interesting longitudinal study of children 2-6 yrs of USA to study motor development of young children. Her 6 month study results showed that movement skill aquisition are age related during early childhood years. On pg 108-109 table 6.2A-C explains in depth the emergence sequenceand approximate age -range for several fundamental stability,locomotor,and manipulative skills. It is very informative to learn in table 6.3 about the common tests we can do to learn about the fitness of a child. Another important information that is provided in this chapter was the data of recent survey (National Center for Health Statistics,2001) clearly reveals that children in united states are heavior than as compare to their counterparts 20 yrs ago. And this is all because of the lack of physical activity which tends to promote obesity in children.

As proceeding in this chapter we learn the benefits and different surveys and studies done on the importance of physical fitness of children. It is essential to know how much muscle strength, joints and heart healthy as well as to improve balance and coordination of body is important to lead a healthy developing normal child. Adult intervention in providing opportunities to children to play and and get invoved in aerobics as well as different movement activities can help in reduction of obesity rate in children.

In my day care we strongly believe in outdoor activity, which is mainly walks through the creek and climbing trees and running and rolling on the ground.we play balancing game on the logs and frog race games as well as we do competition on standing on one leg. I think this all promotes physical fitness and falls into all aspects of physically fit healthy developing child. Physical fitness also promote healthy minds. Along with physical activity we must introduce children to healthy eating habits as well. If our children, as well all know , live in a fast food society, if we do not promote healthy eating habits in our children they will not be able to continue physical activities. Also i very much emphasize on any kind of physical activity in the form of play . As play promotes emotional and social development of children as well.

I read an article in a Scientific American Mind related to "The serious need for play"by Melinda Wenner in which she explains thatStuart Brown's studies show that Play -deprived childhood disrupts normal social, emotional and cognitive development in humans and animals. i am adding the web site to share this magazine article with you all.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-serious-need-for-play&print=true

Another Qualitative research paper that i read also supports the readings of Capter 6 as well as the previous article by Melinda Wenner. The study done in this research article by Richard Baily, "Physical education and sport in schools: A review of Benefits and Outcomes". This paper focuses on the benefits of physical education for both children as well as for educational system. Further it provides research evidence in terms of children's development in different domains ,physical, lifestyle,affective, social, cognitive. This paper is focused on the benefits of physical education and sport as oit shows through it's title.It further explains that physical inactivity has been identified as a major risk factor for coronary heart disease, as well as beings associated with premature morality and obesity. the PES programs has been establised to promote physical activities amongst children,and they are cost effective ways so to upbring healthy future adults who can lead a physically active life.

I have a little girl in my day care who is 2 1/2 yrs almost. she was very petite and unsocial child, did not want to eat at all day and mommy was fine with that. Also had great stanger anxiety, she would cling to me and will not go to any one else.Either mom or me.If anyone just say hi to her it is a big problem. She would cry very loud.Gradually i brought her into block games and later outdoor games( which initially she would not do) This gradual transition brought a very visible change in her, she's eating better, plays with others,as well as share her toys.talks and sings with us.Participate in outdoor play and running. Still there is a room for more progress which she will achieve soon but i see the effects of physical activity upon children.

This reminds me of another article that i ahve been reading, It is from European Journal of Public health, This paper is about the "Physical activity Patterns of Kindergarten Children in comparison to teenagers and young adults".by Eric Sigmund,Mark De Ste Croix, Ludmila Miklankova,Karel Fromel. This qualitative study also supports physical education and increasing number of obesity and heart problems in children and other related problems with children's physical health in schools gave thought to researchers to study the Physical Activity in pre school children. The reason of this study was based on the increasing rate of obesity and low physical activity rate in young children. This study focused to identify the PA of preschool children in comparison to the PA of teen agers and young adults.

It was an interesting study.The participants of this study were 104 Czech preschool children aged 5-7yrs and 117 teen agers aged 12-17yrs and young adults aged 18-24yrs. participants were monitored over 7 days of the weedend.Their PA was evaluated on the basis of activity energy expenditure (AEE-kcalkg -1 day-1).

Interesting results were found in this study related to activity energy expenditure of children,teen ager and young adults. The AEE of preschoolers was significantly higher in comparison to all age groups. Their AEE was higher both on weekends as well as on weekdays. Another fact that was found in one longitudinal study of 3-5 yrs old revealed that obesity is associated with parent and child. Children with higher socioeconomic status who own more movement stimulating toys are more physically active at home as well as in their kindergarten break session time, as compare to the children with low socioeconomic status.

It was concluded in this study that if organized activity such as 50-70 min of walking , 20 mn twice daily excercise on carpet, in preschool along with unorganized activity time and space for their further healthy development in life.

This study supported my project also as well as of chapter 6 how important is physical movement in childhood for the rest of healthy life mentally and physically.

Chapter 10 of children's experiences, further explains childrens involvement in research. It is important to involve children and let them design their own research agenda. Youth -adult partnerships in research gives adults and youth equal opportunities to make decisions about the design and conduct of the research study. As it is mentioned on pg 167, about the longitudinal study of Oldfather (1995), in her study, views of learning and motivation was the key of multiple partnerships with students. As students helped in the research with data interpetation, participating in conferences and presentation, and eventually leading studies of their own. It is emphasized in this chapter that we involve children in research, it opens the door for both adults, children and youth to communicate and ngotiate with each other. As it is mentioned on pg170 of Researchingchildren's experiences, "authentic collaboration involves authentic relationships in which partners learn about each other and each other's world in the process of working together on shared interests".

This study reminds me one of my old project that we did on healthy eating habits in children and promoting healthy foods. I involved my day care children in my project and First we talked about the health and how our health is affected by different things. Children gave me different views and most of them were quite true, such as i asked them, " What makes us sick?" Children answered, "germs", "Not washing hands", "canddies, they give you stomach ache" "cake". (came from Hungry caterpillar story 'cause we did read it in the morning).

Children made the menu with me for the week and then we did introduce all healthy foods, which children emphasized at home too. Now after a year we see children's pattern of food intake has changed almost 90%. I involved parents in this project and they participated in it well too.Now as i learn the importance of children's involvement in research i check on my own project and try to perform my project in the manner which is better for children.

My project of, " Children's Experience with Nature and outdoor Play"is proceeding in footsteps of the researches done previously. As i involved children 100% as well as adults in my project and finds the confidence and responsibility they show while they are handling plants and watering plants. Few of the children wanted to plant peas in the vegetable garden and examine the vine climb up on the strings very carefully every day. Children planned what to put to save our plants from deers and rabbits.Few of the children had vegetable garden experience from home by seeing their fathers doing it.But i gave them opportunity to do it by themselves, and their prior experience gave them confidence to give suggestions. Our prior experience on going on a nature walk gave them information what animals come close to our house and what animals come close to their own houses.In this way my project sparked in them a curiosity and interest in Nature and to experience and observe it any where they go.

I encourage parents and children to be more outdoors and enjoy nature and be aware of it, Than just sit inside and play ninetendo, or other tech. games.Which promotes, lack of appetite in children, they tend to eat more junk food and aggression and lack of tolerance in them increases as well as lot of medical problems arise.Such as obesity, bad eyesight, ADHD,lack of communication skills, emotional problems. Where as i noticed in my children since 6months, even children with aggressive temprament become much calm after being exposed to nature and being involved in our project. Their social skills are getting better. I have a girl in my day care who was very shy and nervous little girl. She would hang around my neck all day and will not leave me. but gradually being around with all of us in the garden and going on walks exploring nature she is very fond of nature around us and has become very social and communicative. My study emphasizes on parental involvement in nature exploring as well. We,(me and children ) planned a picnic and invited the parents to go on a nature walk with all of us. In my opinion if we bring awareness of environment and love of nature, in younger age they will be more caring towards environment and being outdoors will be much more healthier as adults of present times. I povided parents some information on importance of nature for children and outdoor play. Also invited them to listen a lecture of Elizabeth Goodenough at Oakland University. As my project is proceeding i see awarness and willingness of adults and children to be more outdoors and explore nature than being indoors and play video games.I see children are taking incentive in making plans for outdoor activity and what they like to plan. Chapter 10 reminded me of Reggio approach also which i very much apply in my day care program and invo;ve children in making plans for their projects.

update of children's interaction with nature in photographic form

I wanted to share some pictures of children interacting with nature and we can see amazement in their expressions.As well as  how much calm and focussed they are in their adventures.While we went out in a creek for nature walk, Children loved to find different bugs and little plants and flowers and shared their discoveries with friends and me.Also while preparing for vegetable garden they were quite focused what they want to plant and where. Every moment they were enjoying to feel and touch dirt and explore nature around themselves. I could observe how much connected they were when they were outdoors.