Friday
This past Friday was another fun day in the sun for Forest Playschool!
We spent the morning searching for butterflies in the garden—they landed in daffodils and up on signs and rocks all around the yard. While looking for our butterfly friends we were also lucky enough to stumble upon a baby American Toad hanging out by our apple trees! Emily held up the toad to show us all which was especially exciting for Emily, an enthusiastic toad-lover.
After our toad fun we gathered in a circle while our Morning Meeting leader planned a great day for us.
In preparing for the end of this Forest Playschool session we had a special craft organized for the kids! We spent our time after snack and story painting flower pots for us to plant seeds in at our final week. Everyone got to choose four colors that they could use on their pots and it was so lovely to see what color combinations everyone chose and hoe they were able to artistically express themselves!
We beat the heat with some free-play time at Forest Camp. Being out of the sun, everyone had much more energy for running around, exploring, and playing in the mud kitchen! We even had a friend find an inch worm hanging out in the area.
After lunch we stuck around the shady area of Forest Camp to build fairy houses and gnome homes. Some friends worked together and others showed off their individual creations to one another. We hypothesized what kinds of amenities fairies and gnomes would appreciate and constructed the homes with this in mind. Each home was so unique! It was impressive to see the creativity everyone used in finding materials and scoping out locations for their homes.
We ended the day with Thank-you Circle back in the sunny yard! It’s funny that it was snowy and cold not all that long ago and today we had to think of ways to cool ourselves down in this mid-May bout of heat. It was a great day to spend in the shade of the woods and we had a great time getting to see so much creativity! See you next week for our last day!
Monday
Today was our last together as a group and it was a beautiful day! We started the morning by searching for two of the most common animals at a bird feeder: birds and squirrels.
Once we found all of the animals around the yard we sat in a circle to try to identify some of the birds. We knew so many! Most of the group was able to identify a Blue Jay, Black-Capped Chickadee, Crow and Woodpecker. We went through the harder birds together and practiced pronouncing their names.
Then, it was time for morning meeting. Our last morning meeting leader decided we would hike down to Peeper Pond to play some games and explore.
We had snack and heard a story, packed up our things and headed down to Peeper Pond. It was so sunny! We had a great time listening to the sounds coming from the pond, finding big sticks and playing a few round of Max the Fox. We renamed the game "What time is it Mr. Fox?" to "What time is it Max the Fox?" so that anyone would feel comfortable being the tagger.
We hiked back up to Forest Camp for lunch and then it was time for our closing circle and craft! The adults were asked to come 20 minutes early so that they could participate and listen to the playschoolers favorite memories. Once everyone shared something that they enjoyed throughout Forest Playschool we moved into our craft, which was filling our painted flower pots with soil and wildflower seeds!
We had such a great time exploring the Audubon Center and getting to know your creative kiddos. Thanks so much for a great Spring Session. We hope to see you at Summer Camp or in our programs next year!
