Readiness Skills and Natural Exploration with a nod to Susan Gallagher for beginning this list

Fine Motor Skills:

• Pick up small acorns, pebbles, sticks, and pinecone
• Find small invertebrates, insects
• Draw in dirt/sand with sticks
• Scissor skills
• Cut or hole punch leaves
• Cut Grass
• Cut garden plants

Gross Motor Skills:

• Open space for running, jumping freely
• Climb a low tree
• Play with a ball
• Move tires and stumps
• Jump in leaves
• Sled

Eye-Hand Coordination:

• Toss a ball through a hoop, into a basket, or to a person
• Dig and dump
• Stack sticks to make structures

Language and Literacy Skills:

• Letter Recognition, Upper and Lower case
  • Letter sound walk
  • Read books
  • Look for letter shapes in nature
  • Make a nature alphabet book
  • Draw letters in the sand/dirt/air
• Sequencing
  • Talk about the order of doing things
  • Discuss being prepared for outside in all weather
  • Discuss how animals forage for and store food for winter
  • Look for pinecones that have been nibbled on
• Matching
  • Match natural items by color, size, shape and sound
• Opposites
  • Explore a variety of textures in nature and describe them
• Visual Discrimination
  • Classify and group objects
  • Same and different
• Positional words
  • Use words to describe, above, below, up, down, next to
• Rhyming
  • Sing nature related songs and fingerplays
  • Make up songs

Math Skills

• Counting
  • Count natural objects, sticks, rocks, pinecones, leaves, acorns, seeds, flowers, trees
• Sorting
  • Collect and sort natural objects
• Graphing
  • If you can collect it, you can graph it
  • Graph how something feels
  • Graph experiences
  • Graph flavors if you’ve grown vegetables
• Measuring
  • Bring measuring outside, rulers, cups, thermometer, rain gauge
  • Use a balance and a scale
• Number recognition
  • Draw numbers in the sand/dirt/air
  • Count objects you find
  • Use natural objects to create numbers
• Size recognition
  • Compare natural objects
• Patterns
  • Look for patterns, scales a pinecone, the rings on a tree stump
  • Makea nature pattern, one acorn, one pinecone, try more difficult patterns
• Shapes
  • Have a shape scavenger hunt

Science

• Properties of water in different seasons
• Watch the tree, plant, insect, animal, and water cycles
• Explore temperature
• Watch the clouds
• Plant a garden
• Name the parts of plants, animals

Self Help Skills

• Hang up coat
• Put on coat, mittens, hats
• Carry food bag
• Open food containers, wrappers
• Clean up