What a wonderful first week of Forest Kindergarten! We had a lot of fun exploring our Woolly Bear site and getting to know each other, making new friends. After creating their wish rocks, the children found special places to keep their rocks as an offering and a way to have a piece of home to comfort them. We visited Grandmother Maple and heard the story of how the maple saved all the animals of the forest.
Learning about the birds of prey was a highlight of the week, especially the wingspan lengths and the speeds at which raptors can fly up to when diving to catch their prey. Did you know the red tailed hawk can dive at speeds up to 150 miles per hour?!
Thursday had a whole agenda for us as the rains poured down on us for most of the morning. The Rolly Polys First day was Thursday, and we all joined in our opening circle outside of the teaching barn to keep dry under the pergola and greet our friends on their first day. We greeted the rain and the equinox with a fire ceremony; with the wet ground and weather it was looking as though starting a fire may be unsuccessful, but with the group singing the fire song and Raei’s persistence, the fire started and kept us warm all morning!
We created stories around the fire and played games as we kept shelter under the tarp. The water started to drain into our fire pit, so the children built a trench redirecting the water away from the fire. When the rains let up a bit we went for a walk to move our bodies and explore. Finding a running stream was a highlight and the children loved plating in it, splashing around in their rain boots!
The Forest K Woolly Bears also created sit spot tree cookies and practiced sit spots this week! They were so proud of the hard work and creativity they put into their cookies! Having a designated area at the site is so exciting! They love having an area that gives them independence and ownership.
We ended the week by finding and decorating journey sticks. Journey sticks are a tactile way of recording their journeys and remembering them later on. Each child will have their own stick and along our journeys, if they find something special, they can bring it back and attach it to their personalized and decorated stick. At the end of the program, they will bring home their decorated journey stick and many stories to share!
We are looking forward to next week and what it will bring to the Woolly Bears!
—FireFox (Jodi) and White Pine (Raei)
September 22, 2022