Marin Tender Tracks Tues. May 31, 2016 Day 65

Waxing Moon
Lake Laguitas

Ariel and Layton were absent today.

We began in the bus with an invitation to a new adventure.  They were asked to choose a stuffed animal that they would like to take out of the bus today and go on an adventure with them.

The otter was absent as well so Alara chose the Fairy statue,  Talay chose the Sparkly Sea Horse, Velia the Giraffe, Aaron the Horse, Rhett the Rhino and Ione the dolphin.

Michelle had  not arrived yet so I invited the children to camouflage  their stuffed animals at their tree so that Michelle could see if she could find them.

As we sat down to circle Velia had asked something with her arms crossed and a bit of an angry tone.  I thought it would be fun to bring  us into a game of feeling our sensations when we ask for something with our arms crossed, arms open and arms opened wide and up in the air. They enjoyed this game. Try it, it feels so very different each time. What does it feel like to you???
We were just about to sing when Michelle came and brought us into a new game that then led us into singing to all the directions and our other songs.  We had our smudging circle and Alara JUMPED into wanting to be first.  There were group smudges too!
We then had a story about how one of our songs came to be. It was about learning to sit ever so still under a tree and hear it’s song.
After circle they went with Michelle as she slowly found each one of their treasures. We then played Bandaid tag and their own tree was where they got the bandaid’s off. They made a variation on the game where you use your stuffed animal to tag each other.
They liked this part very much.  Some of them were so very very busy  as well as content with covering their sutffed animal or building little homes for them. It was tender to watch.

We finally gathered our belongings and made our way up the trail.  It was getting so very, very hot too.

When we got to the top the view of the lake was so beautiful. We stayed a bit and just gazed at it’s glory.  We walked a little more and then found another interesting place. We saw that little flowers were growing on top of the water. We went down closer and sure enough on the plants in the lake were growing beautiful little white flowers.  Earlier Alara was wondering if Dragon flies have antenna.  I suggested we look at some when we see one. Michelle found one floating on the water, presumably dead. She scooped it up. Not only was it not dead but we did not see Large  antennae. We did however see small antennae,just like the ones that Alara had drawn on a picture she showed us.

The Dragonfly did pass on about 15 minutes later but we got to see it up close. It was a beautiful and incredible being able to see it so close up.

Down, down, down, the trail we went until we found our self at a spot we know and appreciate and the place that Aaron calls the, “Troll Bridge.”   It was lunch time at this point and they all were saying how their tummies were grumbling. We sat down in our circle and began to eat. Velia needed to poop so she and I went to find a place off the trail to offer this gift while Michelle told them a story that they requested about Moon Rocks. We came back to hear the last half of this beautiful tale.  We all wound up telling each other our personal stories about the Moon and then off they went to play and explore in the creek that was in front of us and that still had water in it.

Talay discovered a Water Skeeter eating a bug it’s own size!!  We stared at that for quite a while. They took some of their lunch containers and became very involved with trying to catch little beings from the water.  And then that time came that nobody wanted, getting ready to go back. So that is what we did.

They told stories to their animal companions while during our day and showed them all around where we were staying and eating. They had them look up, and down and all around and they loved whispering their tales in their ears.