Our little community continues to grow and strengthen as we practice our friendship skills and awareness of the world around us. The children are really settling into deep play with their peers and are so excited about some skills that we are exploring.
We have been weaving in learning about tinder, camouflage, fire, and carving into our wanders and activity time. Up to the top of the hill we headed on Tuesday to find as many dried ferns as possible. We learned that the warm weather has kept things alive well past the usual time, but we did find some and collected them for tinder to start fires. We also found a brand new downed birch tree ready for harvesting its bark.
The children had an opportunity to lead friends in getting to know a new tree. As one partner is blindfolded, the other guides them to a tree and they have to then find their way back to it. It was a wonderful test of trust in their partner and a delightful sensory experience.
Later on in the week, some of the Woolly Bears practiced using flint and steel strikers to light their own little tinder bundles. This is a skill that can sometimes take months to get good at as it requires focus, patience and some quick gross and fine motor movements. Congratulations to everyone who got a spark for the first time!
Some of our older friends started working on carving spoons from cedar wood. We drew outlines to help guide the way and most have a nice long handle carved out. We will continue to work on these, temperatures permitting.
Wednesday was all about stealth and camouflage. We practiced our slow movements and quiet bodies and voices by sneaking up on the older homeschool groups. Face paint and charcoal are absolutely necessary as well as ferns and bittersweet crowns to blend right in. In addition, we used the black walnut dyed t-shirts to add extra invisibility. It was impressive to watch out group crawl on the ground through ferns and brush to arrive at the campsites. We shared a gratitude song as a gift to the older groups once we revealed ourselves.
Some additional highlights of the week:
- A den building scene with bittersweet vines being pulled to create a woven wall
- A story about how Grandmother Spider brought fire to the animals
- Lots of mud balls and sculptures
- Lots of walnut cracking to process the nuts!
—Julie, JJ, and the counselors
October 24, 2021