In case you didn't realize it.....let me be the first to tell you.....Lowe's Home Improvement Store is a VERY large store! I think that it took everyone a while to adjust to being dropped off for preschool at Lowe's.  Even with the preparation from yesterday.....it just didn't seem right.

Mr. Ben (the manager) met us outside to welcome us to his store and see if we needed anything.  All the store workers were very friendly and talked to the children as we walked around.  Making our way to the greenhouse area of the store was probably the most difficult part.  It's hard to compete with Halloween directions and Christmas trees, no matter how interesting you are! 

Ms. Tiffany had made a scavenger hunt book of things to look for on our trip.  We found plants, dirt, gloves, seeds, pumpkins, and a shovel.  There were so many things to touch and explore.  Wind chimes, bird baths, rakes, bird feeders, hoses, watering cans, and wheel barrows.  Well....I'm sure you've all been to Lowe's, but it's different when you are looking around through little people eyes!  After a final walk down the "HO HO" aisle, we prepared for our walk back to school.

I thought I had fully prepared myself to walk in the rain, but I definitely wasn't ready for the very hard drizzle (downpour sounds so negative) that happened on the first 10 minutes of the walk.  I planned on singing songs to keep the kids engaged, but amidst "Hold the rope", "Keep your hood on, it's raining", "Yes, it is raining", and "We will have lunch when we get back to school", we didn't make it through too many verses.  Someone important must have been watching, because as we got to the halfway point, the clouds cleared and the sun started to shine.  The walk improved dramatically with the weather!  It didn't take nearly as long as we all thought to get back to school.  We definitely picked up speed on the downhill stretches....uphill is hard work!

Back at school, we had an early lunch to ease the transition.  During lunch, we reviewed our scavenger hunt book and talked about our favorite things from the trip.  The gloves and the watering can easily won out, but I think that had something to do with getting to actually try them both out! 

Our book today was Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert.  The story is about planting a flower garden with all the different colors of the rainbow.  We spent center time identifying and naming colors of objects from the classroom. We also tried to get everyone to say a complex phrase of adjective + noun when naming things to build sentence structure. 

The kids love Out and About Days.  They are long and we don't follow our typical schedule, but it is so much fun to see and touch the things that we learn about each day.  It's also neat to give them opportunities to interact with people out in the community.  The most important learning we do happens outside of a classroom.....those are things we don't forget!!