Wow, this week was so exciting for two reasons: Friday's group had amazing costumes and Monday's group saw our first real snow! We had asked both groups to wear their Halloween costumes this week, but it was so cold Monday that snow suits took the place of costumes.
Friday 10/30
Happy almost Halloween! The excitement was in the air this Friday, all of the playschoolers were eager to tell us about their costumes and trick or treating plans. It was such a blast to see them dressed up as fairies, vampries, firefighters and other Halloween favorites. We started a fire at Forest Camp before the playschoolers and kept it going all day because it was quite chilly out. At Forest Camp, we searched for ghosts and then planned our day during Morning Meeting.
Our Morning Meeting Leader wanted to hike up to Mossy Rocks, an area just off the Hires Trail. It's an awesome area for fairy house building and climbing.
After having some free play time and climbing, we gathered leaves to make a giant leaf pile for the whole group to jump into!
Once our pile looked big enough for all of us, we gathered around it and....JUMPED!
On our way back down to Forest Camp, we took a detour to gather some extra fire wood for our bonfire. We talked about how wet sticks will weaken our fire and came up with the 'snap test' to decide if something is fire worthy or not. If your stick has a nice snap, then it is dry enough. If your stick is bendy and has a weak snap, it's too wet! We ate our lunch around the fire to keep warm and listened to stories about great, big pumpkins and fields of corn.
We ended our day with free play until our adults arrived!
Monday 11/2
Holy cow, Monday brought the snow! We actually moved to the Birds of Vermont Museum today because they have a larger, heated indoor space for us to eat our meals in. It was exciting to be in a new spot, especially when it looked like a winter wonderland! As our playschoolers arrvied, they eagerly got to work shoveling the walk way and making snow balls or snowmen.
We had planned for playschoolers to wear their halloween costumes today, but the weather didn't allow for most. Thankfully, we had one warm weather costume...our Snow Dragon! She spits icicles instead of fire, watch out!
We also hid some pumpkins to keep with the halloween spirit, but they became increasingly hard to find as the snow fell and covered them. Instead of having individuals find four each, we worked as a big group to try and locate the ones that were left.
Luckily, we found them all! Some of us started to feel cold after pumpkin hunting, so we decided it would be a great time to go inside for Morning Meeting and snack.
We helped our Morning Meeting Leader plan a bit since the museum is a new space, but she brought some great ideas! She planned a hike, snowball building and coloring time for us. Once we finished snack and story, we got our gear back on to hike! We hiked out to Bob Spear's old cabin where there's an opening in the forest perfect for building with snow.
Around noon we trekked back to the museum for lunch. The room we gathered in had a bird sanctuary area right outside the window with lots of feeders so we were entertained by some bird TV while we ate. We saw woodpeckers, morning doves, blue jays, nuthatches, chickadees and a few other song birds!
Those who finished eating were given a coloring page to work on with penguins and other snowy scenes to fill in. Then, we got our gear back on and played outside until our adults arrived! We made snowballs and measured our wingspans.
See you next week!
