Happy Valentine's Day! It was a very cold day with a high of six degrees. On these days we still go outside, but we limit our time to 30 minutes at a time before coming back inside to warm up. We always make sure that when we are outside that we are doing something active to stay warm. We started our morning outside sledding, digging tunnels in the snow and playing in the snow forts, called 'quinzhees', built by our Unschool program. The 'quinzhees' are Canadian snow shelters that are built by making a pile of snow, packing it down, letting it rest for a couple of hours and then digging an entrance or tunnels in. 

After playing outside we went inside for morning meeting and snack. Our morning meeting leader wanted to do a craft, go for a hike and end our day in some free play. We decided the perfect craft would be Valentine's cards! We had coloring pages, cutout hearts, pipecleaners and foam to get creative with. Some made cards for their parents, others made cards for their dogs. We also encouraged the group to think about who/what their nature Valentine would be.  A lot of us chose our favorite predators or other mega fuana - I chose a chickadee as my Valentine because they are just beginning to sing their mating call that sounds a lot like "Hey Sweetie." 

After making cards we ventured to the backyard to play hide and seek! Almost every round someone would hide in the quinzhee. Even hide and seek felt a little cold to play since it requires staying still in one spot. So before going back inside for lunch, we played a few rounds of what time is it Mr. Fox. 

We ended our day with lunch by the fire in the barn. See you next week!