Marin Tender Tracks Day 5, Oct. 13, 2011

Full Moon
Roy’s Redwood

The sun was warm, the ground wet from past rains, spiders and webs all over and such ease and fun was present.

The children now know the routine and came joyfully ready to play and explore.  Sidona remembers the first two times when they had to find things and is wondering why they didn’t do that today.  Benny really loved the fire and cooking popcorn and would have gladly had us do that again.  Simone went right to scrapping coal off of the Redwood tree and painted my face and Leo had his priorities in order when we first got there; eat then play!    I told them a story about how to collect wood and off they went gathering, with the buckets that I brought. Sidona led the way up a very large Bay tree.  Benny tried to follow but Sidona is by far more skilled then any of them with climbing trees.  Leo doesn’t seem to be concerned with that but Benny, he would like to climb as high as she does.  Simone was just delighted with climbing over logs and balancing on a see saw type of apparatus I made with a big dead log.

I took some of the Bay tree young shoots and made some crowns.  They all wanted them, accept Leo, and only Simone stayed with wearing it.  Maybe because of her beautiful thick curls make wearing branches on ones head more comfortable!

But oh yes, to lead us to our usual spot there was a trail of “powder”, they called it.  Only this time it took them there a different route. On the way we found some acorns and other unexpected treasures.  Simone kept saying a Poison Oak rhyme that now for some reason I can not  remember! But, it’s something about, if it’s shiny leave your hiny? That’s not it, and I actually know this but I can’t remember it at the moment.  At any rate, she was saying this all day and trying to remember what Poison Oak looks like.  I spent some time with her as she did wind up picking a beautiful red leaf!!!!  I washed her hand straight away with what I have that can take the oils off and then she and I really looked at the Poison Oak leaves and the Berry leaves, comparing, contrasting and learning.  The plants  have some things in common. ” Leaves of three let it be. If it’s harry it’s a berry.”

Your children are such great explorers and they really know how to play.  Sounds funny to say buy not all children do.  In this exploring and playing we discovered Fairy houses made from Mushrooms, many different kinds of mushrooms, shelters to hide in, sticks to be peeled and used in many different ways, different trails, logs to balance on like See- Saws and expanding our circle of exploration.  I wound up telling several stories and Simone would have loved them to go on and on.

Leo appeared quite content playing and playing with Benny.  At the end of the day though they got upset with each other yet excerted great self control.  It turned out that Leo thought Ben was laughing at him when he felt sad so he threw some wood dust on him.  Then Ben picked up a stick and “…wanted to hit him with it” but did not.

Leo stayed present to work this out but did not want to get close to Benny after this for a time until they got back in the bus, or half way back to  the bus.

Also, they all really like the halloween songs that we have been singing.  You can listen to two of them that I have been sharing with them on the blog titled, Song and Story of the Month.  One song is where they count with their fingers and they all seem to like that, it is called Five little Pumpkins Sittin on the Gate.  The other one starts out with, Five little witches flying thru the Air.  All have hand movements and the children seem to find this very fun.

The day was creative, explorative, physically active, a time of settling, flowing easefully in to time and space and imaginations alive and healthy.