We have an agenda and I am very excited about Ardell proud early learning superintendent Salo. >> Yes, we are delighted to have some amazing adults with us tonight and some absolutely amazing young students who are going to highlight for us the powerful role of outdoor and nature-based learning experiences in their early early childhood education. The early learning team will share how outdoor experiences support young children's emotional well-being, encourage creativity, and foster important social skills such as cooperation, communication, and problem-solving. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Emily Levenson to take it from here. Thanks for being here, everyone. >> Good evening, Chairwoman Becker, school board director >> My name is Emily Levenson and I'm the director of early learning and I am so excited to shine a spotlight on early learning and share how our early learning students are growing through nature and outdoor learning. I would like to first read our district mission but my button is not working. Molly There we go. All right. Join with me if you would like. Our mission is to inspire and educate all learners to develop their unique potential and positively contribute to their community. Hi Arthur. Layered on top of our district mission, we have an early learning vision statement. Robbinsdale Area Schools early learning program strives to provide a welcoming and culturally responsive community that encourages lifelong learning, connection, and play for all children and caregivers. Uh before we hear more about uh outdoor learning, I'd like to just take a moment to share a bit more about the early learning program. Um as you can see, there are many programs and community supports that fall under the early learning umbrella. Um and while these programs all differ a little bit slightly uh slightly uh different, they are unified by our vision statement and the shared belief that we are here to support all young children and their families. So, under the early learning umbrella, we have early childhood screening, early childhood family education, voluntary pre-K both at New Hope Learning Center, and um at Smetana Lake, Forest, Sonnesyn, Neil, Noble, Northport, and Lakeview. Uh early childhood special education, fee-based preschool, early intervention, and helping us grow uh which is a unique a unique collaboration of Hennepin County school districts, their early childhood family education departments, and the Robbinsdale Area Redesign Family Service Collaborative. Here are a few um early uh data points, early learning by the numbers I like to say. Uh we have over 400 children enrolled in our preschool programs, and 121 of those students are receiving early childhood special education services, and are served in an inclusive classroom that meets their needs. Um our family education program serves over 570 children and their families. Um more early childhood special education students, early intervention, um and we have served 88 students and families through our Hug Home Visiting and Literacy events. So, you can see lots of children and families are served under the early learning umbrella, over 1,000. We also complete roughly 800 to 850 early childhood screens every year. We have two licensed administrators, 60 licensed staff, 51 non-licensed. So, a lot of people supporting young children and their families. [clears throat] All right. I'd like to introduce the team that I've brought with me tonight across the table. So, I'm going to start with staff. So, I've got Sarah Tinklenberg who's the early learning supervisor. Emily Mackey is one of our early childhood special education teachers and then Janet Ryan is one of our preschool teachers. We also have some Oh, sorry. Can't click and move. We have some very special guests with us. Annika, can you give away Annika? AND LUCY. And Arthur. Arthur, WHERE ARE YOU? ALL RIGHT. You're going to hear directly from them a little bit later in the presentation, but for now I'm going to pass it on to Sarah. >> Thank you, Emily. >> It is. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you, Emily. Um You're going to be my clicker. All right. So, we love getting outside and at New Hope and in our early learning programs and we like bringing nature in. So, our outdoor and nature-based learning supports young children's academic growth, their physical growth, emotional well-being, creativity, and social development through hands-on developmentally appropriate experiences. And before we take a closer look at some of those specific experiences, I just want to briefly share information about our primary curriculum that we use which is Creative Curriculum for Preschool. Creative Curriculum is evidence-based, play-based, whole child curriculum that aligns with the early childhood indicators of progress which is like the Minnesota state standards for early for littles. And in Creative Curriculum learning is centered centered around hands-on engaging studies that encourage children to to explore and discover through play. Gardening happens to be one of the many studies topics available to teachers, which provide children the opportunity to learn about nature, science, and the environment through direct experience. All right, so there's going to be some good pictures coming up of our classes. And gardening gardening again is an excellent hands-on learning tool that promotes holistic development, engages children in lots of sensory exploration, builds those motor skills, foundational science and math concepts. And also nurturing plants fosters responsibility, can relieve stress, and encourages healthier eating habits. I mean, it's a very a start. >> [laughter] >> All right, now for the fun part. As you view the next few few slides, you'll see our students engaged in gardening activities while hearing from teachers Janet and Emily about the learning experiences that took place in their classrooms. So, we're going to start with Janet. >> [laughter] >> You might see some familiar faces, girls. >> Hello. My name is Janet Ryan, and I teach 5-day preschool classes for ages 4 and 5 at New Hope, and Lucy and Annika are two of my afternoon students. During the gardening unit of study, we learned about the life cycle of plants, what they need to grow, and the tools used to care for them. But before we planted in the garden beds located on the playground, I had the students look at the garden bed. Some of these pictures are showing that. Um to make a plan, what would be the best place to plant things, what tools would we need. Then they began to prepare the soil, dig holes, and plant the flowers and seeds. Each day they've been caring for their plants by pulling weeds and watering the garden. Planting outdoors has allowed them to use thinking skills, ask questions, and have the opportunity to to in a real-life hands-on learning experience. And next, all right. Hi, my name is Emily and I teach one of our center-based classes with three to four-year-olds including our friend Arthur over here um at New Hope Learning Center. Um students in my class are in the most restrictive setting in our building. They require small uh small student to adult ratio so that they can participate in school within small groups and one-on-one support. These students also benefit from an adaptive curriculum to meet them where they're at in all areas of development. Uh for our garden study, these students benefit from having the activities broken down so they can really participate in them and enjoy them. Um >> [clears throat] >> so for our class, um you can see in the pictures here, we started creating a sign for our garden bed. Um so they got to color it and um just make it really interesting to look at. We put it out in our garden bed so we could find it then when we were out on the playground. Um and we know with that we're targeting our fine motor skills and our problem-solving to do so. Um then we used paint to decorate our garden bed. This encouraged my students to engage their social and emotional skills um as they interacted with other peers out on the playground as well from other classes. >> [snorts] >> Um next we used our problem-solving skills and more motor skills to choose our plants, where to put them in the garden, and how to put them into the ground. Our senses were engaged as we felt the dirt in various flowers, and later as we go on the playground other days, um we check our flowers, see how they're growing, we water them, um and the students are just really proud to see their work every day. Thank you, Emily. Moving on to caterpillars. This was a very exciting thing that we've had over the last few weeks. So, we've learned all of our classrooms had the opportunity to learn about hatching caterpillars. And it can be incorporated into one of the creative curriculum studies of insect or offered as a standalone. And so, again, some of those fun hands-on activities. I'm going to just kind of go through a little quicker just for the sake of our kids want to talk. But, yes, so they really learned about taking care of living creatures, saw start from the little the caterpillar, watched it eat the food, turn into the chrysalis, and then waited for the hatching. And so, I'm going to let our teachers share again how that played out in their classrooms. >> All right. So, having caterpillars is a fun and hands-on learning to add to our insect study within our curriculum. This school year, I happen to have some students with high interest in bugs. So, as you can guess, that was very fun for them. So, through observation video, my students were able to take their learning within this study to a whole other level by taking care of the caterpillars and watching them grow. They were mesmerized to see them as butterflies and this gave them multiple opportunities for student voice in their learning and exploring. >> So, the caterpillars were a perfect addition to our insect unit of study. The students were able to closely observe the metamorphosis into a butterfly. From the moment the caterpillars arrived, the students were checking on them several times a day and anticipating the next phase of the butterfly life cycle. Students were using their observation skills, their communication skills when sharing information. Literacy and math skills naturally emerged when students journaled about the changes and tracked each day until the first butterfly finally emerged. Again, this activity provided a tangible experience for students to see and observe the butterfly life cycle in real time. Okay, so now we're going to let our guests jump in. And this is a song that Miss Janet's class also did the insect study and they learned this song as part of an end of the unit celebration of learning. And so we would love it if our special guests Annika and Lucy joined in and we're going to play the video. We figured it was safer to do it this way than to try to do it live, but we're going to join along. And you are welcome to Are you ready? Okay, here's You get to hold the microphone. >> [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] [applause] [applause] >> All right, just a few other things I wanted to highlight that make our learning fun and special especially when it's nice outside is we have a mud kitchen. Now, I don't know if you've seen mud kitchens before, it's not like your home kitchen. You get a little dirty. Well, maybe you get a little dirty in your home kitchen, too. But it really is a fan favorite a student favorite. It provides powerful open-ended sensory experiences engaging with cooking with dirt water and natural materials, they again work on those critical fine motor skills, practice early STEM concepts like volume and measurement, etc. And so we just feel so lucky we have this in the grassy area and in the mud kitchen and a place for gardens. And so Janet and Emily, do you want to just say a few words about how your students engage with the mud kitchen? >> So these pictures are just a combination of our two classes. Um that mud kitchen provides another opportunity for students to participate in a hands-on experience. It offers open-ended play that include those fun sensory experiences. It provides a chance for students to use social skills when sharing materials and academic skills like measuring ingredients, cause and effect. Students will collect pine cones and rocks and grass and leaves to use in their play which encourages using their imagination and experiment with those materials during play. And in these pictures, my students were making cupcakes and tea for a party we were having. >> I'm sure they would have welcomed you to join them. >> [laughter] >> All right, before we hear from our special guests one more time, I wanted to share something from another one of our teachers who couldn't make it tonight where she does a lot of bringing the learning from the outside inside the classroom. And so here's a life cycle of a pumpkin. So this teacher literally from beginning to end, she just rotates this pumpkin. So um So in the in the spring time, they gather well in the fall, they're coming back to the gardens growing. So they'll start by taking care of plants that were already planted by the previous class. Then the pumpkins grow, they bring them in, they weigh them, they measure them, they carve out the seeds to replant again in the spring. And then [snorts] they put it inside the sensory bin where they watch it decompose. And um in some of the pictures, oh you can see the kids I mean most of the teachers go in there and are like ew, but the kids love it. They love watching it grow. And so this I just really think this highlights some innovative work some of our teachers do. This same teacher also brought in this beautiful plant and they did a still life study with that and the children observed it and picked out colors and painted their version. >> [snorts] >> And then finally here the last slide shows some pictures of them planting seeds and plants for them to take home as well as planting grass in small sensory bins to have on the tables for children to use in their imaginative play. All right, enough from the adults. I think we need to interview some of our special guests. So Miss Janet, are you ready? Miss Monica, are you ready? Are you ready Miss Miss Lucy? Okay, here we go. >> What did you grow in our garden? >> Flowers and pumpkins. >> And what do plants need to grow? >> Um with seed and dirt and sun and air and rain. >> And what did you like best about planting in our garden? >> Um making pumpkins. >> Planting the pumpkins. Yes, in the garden which is right by [snorts and clears throat] the big blue structure. All right, let's see. You ready? >> Will you both use Will you both use the microphone when you talk? That'd be great. Thanks. I didn't use my teacher voice, sorry. >> [laughter] >> Okay, let me ask you the question. What happens after a caterpillar turns into a chrysalis? >> Um um it um it um it um it it [snorts] turns into a butterfly. >> Yes. And what did you like best about the caterpillars? >> How they How they opened up and how I learned it how they opened up. >> And if you were a butterfly, where would you fly? >> To go get some nectar from a butterfly. >> Flower, yay! >> Makes sense. >> [applause] >> We're going to hand the microphone over and ask Arthur what he likes best. We're going to see if Arthur can tell us what he likes best now. All right, Arthur, did you like the caterpillars or the garden? >> I like the garden. >> The garden? What did you like doing in the garden? >> Stick. >> The stick? What else? >> Acorns. >> Yeah, there's some water out there. >> Acorns. >> Acorns. Anything else? >> [laughter] >> Going to climb. >> Yeah, he really wants to go up. >> Yeah, he likes to eat snacks outside. >> [laughter] >> We do eat snacks outside AS WELL. >> THANK YOU.