We're in Week 3 of Forest Playschool! Emily and I are loving getting to know our playschoolers and watching them create friendships while we explore the land. 

This week we started off with another hunt, but this time we searched for (plastic) leaves! Emily and I scattered 35 green, yellow, red and orange leaves around the backyard and garden. This search was particularly difficult because there are also real colored leaves all over the ground, so we had to look very carefully. 

After each student found 4-5 leaves, we counted them and then sorted them by color. Each playschooler took a turn choosing the color they would like to collect. We couldn't find one green leaf on Friday, so it stayed out over the weekend until Monday's group found it! 

Once we had sorted our leaves, we grabbed our carpet squares and noodles to form a circle for Morning Meeting. Friday and Monday differed in activities and weather! 

Friday 9/25

Our Morning Meeting Leader always stands up to add their activities to the board. This playschooler had some fun, out-of-the box ideas for our day together, like nature yoga! He even told us that we would lead our yoga session with his own poses. 

Before yoga, we needed to fuel up with some snack and read a story. The book we read was called How to Hide a Parakeet & Other Birds by Ruth Hellers and our playschoolers were SUPER into it. The story highlights different birds that use camouflage to blend in with their environment and hide from predators. Each bird would be introduced and then, on the following page, be camouflaged so the reader would need to look closely to find it. The book inspired our Morning Meeting Leader to suggest a game of hide and seek during playtime! So we spent the next hour or so after snack taking turns hiding and being the counter. Throughout the game, our hiding spots evolved from hiding like sardines (all together) to using our own form of camouflage. 

After everyone had a turn to be the seeker we moved into nature yoga and red light, green light! Our Morning Meeting Leader led us in a bunch of different poses - he had us crawl on the ground for "flowing river" and standing tall with our arms out for "tree pose" before having us drop our arms and spin to the ground for "falling leaf." Then I led us in some "cat" and "cow" poses before moving onto red light, green light. 

Then we moved into red, light green light before we gathered for Thank You Circle. Thank You Circle is when we share our favorite part of the day with each other before being picked up. 

Monday 9/28

This day started off sunny and 70 degrees, but then a rain storm rolled in for most of our day together. Luckily, no thunder, but we certainly got drenched while having fun! Oddly enough, our Morning Meeting Leader planned the same exact day as Friday's leader, but we did not get to much of it once the rain came. 

We grabbed our backpacks and headed to Forest Camp for snack. While we ate it started misting and gradually turned into a heavier rain. Because of this, our plans changed a bit. We never got to nature yoga, but we did a lot of forest exploration, free play and coloring! Unfortunately, we also have less photos from this day since it was so wet out. 

Last week we revamped the Forest Camp fort a bit with this group - today we were grateful that it was sturdy and cleared out for us to take shelter in from the rain. But the rain didn't stop us from adding more additions to the fort! 

Those who weren't tending to the fort were having some free play time in the forest. 

After free play, we started a game of red light, green light to keep our bodies moving! 

Finally, it was time for lunch! We set up an open-air tent for us eat and read stories under. We wrapped up our day with some coloring until our adults picked us up! 

Hoping for better weather next week!