Thursday, May 4, 2017

Tinkergarten

We got to participate in a free trial Tinkergarten class last week.  
Have you ever heard of Tingergarten?? It was new to me!

The class was at a local park and it was really wonderful.  Olive had a blast and has started doing some of the things she learned in the class on her own at home.  The classes are for kids 18mos-8 years old, focus on enjoying time outdoors, building a community, problem solving, cooperating, listening, sharing and SO much learning!!

Our class had a Stone Soup theme so the kids worked together to pretend, imagine and create their own stone soup together.  There were some basic rules to follow and tons of room for the kids to explore.  It was wonderful and we're definitely thinking about signing up for some classes.


Each child got their own bucket after introductions and went off to fill it up.  Olive was most interested in gum balls, sticks, clovers and some honey suckle.  The parents attend the class with the kids and just help out as needed.  I walked around with Olive, but she didn't need much help from me.

 We gathered back together for a reading of  Stone Soup and sharing our ingredients.  The kids added sticks for a pretend fire, all their treasures and water.  There was a story, songs, and lots of opportunities to be a good listener.



She's feeding our stone soup to the trees and then we all sat down at the picnic tables to summarize our learning, talk about the favorite parts of the class and have a snack together.  It was a fun group and I'm glad we got to go with some friends.

Looking for creatures in the lake.

 We explored the park a bit after class and played on the playground.  Fletcher enjoyed the class.  I wore him in my Ergo the whole time because the ground was really wet after tons of rain.


Do you have Tinkergarten in your area??
I LOVED the focus of creative, outdoor learning.

Olive is asking to go back and for me to buy her a giant pot to make some Stone Soup of her own in our backyard.  I'm definitely heading to Goodwill to look for a big soup pot ASAP.

8 comments:

  1. This sounds SO fun Whitney!! What a special class for Olive to participate in!! And making stone soup is too much fun- my oldest daughter made the "real" thing in her class a couple months ago...she was not impressed when she sampled it. Ha! Hope you have a great day friend!!😊

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  2. Oh my goodness, I love this! I've not heard of Tinkergarden, but it sounds like so much fun. Definitely keep us posted on her stone soup pot! :-)

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  3. This is such an awesome program! It's great to get kids outside, and it looks like Olive had a blast!

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  4. I have never heard of this either but it sounds like a really fun program! That setting is absolute perfection. I would be happy to play and learn there myself :).

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  5. SO MUCH FUN! Can I join Olive next time?

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  6. This is very precious! Some Waldorf kindergartens prepare stone soups - actual vegetable soups with one (I assume larger) stone in it and the children have to find it when they are eating it.
    Spending lots of time outside is great for their growing.
    Best,
    Bibi

    https://simplesummit.blogspot.com/2017/05/simple-moments-april.html

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  7. Never heard of it! (not that we have things like this in our retirement community living anyways : ( ) Super cute idea, and I love Stone Soup! And I love how happy Fletch always looks to be with his MAMA!

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  8. We don't have this nearby but boy that looks like lots of fun! Olive already knows a little about making pretend soup. I think I'm going to do something like this with the boys this summer as a fun learning activity. Thanks for sharing!

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