Resilience never ceases to amaze us. It comes in when we most need it to help us through challenging times and makes us stronger. These colder days are a true testament to our ability to make it through hardship. Having to manage mittens and frosty fingers as well as a mask that gets wet is no easy feat for young children who are still learning to regulate themselves and take care of their belongings. However, days like today reinforce how wonderfully appropriate it is for us to weather the weather, together!
This week we explored birch and learned how to identify two different types: white birch and black birch. White birch we use all the time to light our fires, so some of the children were familiar with it. But we took the time to really observe all the layers and made the connection between the bark and our human skin, also containing so many layers. We learned how to harvest the bark sustainably, from fallen trees only so as to not harm any live ones. And we tasted the sweetness of black birch—a wintergreen, root beer–like flavor. We didn’t have a chance to make tea, but we merrily chewed the twigs.
Our midweek adventures came with lots of snow, so sledding was a highlight of course. Taking turns and finding new friends to partner up with are valuable social skills that we are so happy to see developing in such loving and healthy ways among all of our friends. We heard a story about following your intuition, or body radar, and built a giant gratitude snowball.
We have been moving a lot, spending less time at our campsite in order to stay warm—which brought us to a magical realm at the end of the beaver pond. There we met a most wondrous bird, “The Great Bird,” who delivered a special message. She said she was travelling all over the world making sure all the birds were in their places and well taken care of—and who did she run into? Story Bird! (If you don’t know about Story Bird, they are our magical story whisperer who brings stories to camp everyday for the teachers to tell). She read us a note written to us from Story Bird with the challenge to start paying attention to the winter birds around us.
Our aftercare hours have been spent enjoying our frozen pond, coming up with imaginary games and secret hideouts. During rest time, the children have been using modeling beeswax as they listen to stories to shape into something unique each day!
—JJ, Julie, Raei, and the counselors
January 28, 2021