Marin Tender Tracks Tues. Nov.18, 2014 Day 21

Waning Crescent Moon
Lake Lagunitas

This day was about bringing our attention to gathering fire wood for Thursday.  The story for this week was piggy backing on all the Squirrel songs we have been singing this month and Thanks givings approach.    The jist, all the farm and forest animals got together and shared what they had to make a soup feast and they also discovered the gifts of Sammy Skunk along the way.   In the story we were reminded of how Squirrels burry their nuts yet forget where they are and can only find them through smelling.  We heard how Sammy Skunk digs and roots around for grubs and such and that is how he found Squirrel Nutkins nuts that he could not find.  Stories are such delightful teachers!!!
If you have ever taken an Early Childhood Class often times you are shown a map  of children aged 1 to about 6 or 8 roaming about a room filled with tables and things . You are being shown the  movement pattern of each age.  The younger the child the more rapid movement from place to place you will see. Well, that is about how this group runs and particularly on this day.  They always begin with full and reved up energy like the rising of the Great Sun, with joy, exuberance and  full energy. Then they find their way to their interest continuing to move about.  There is movement from one place, one group, one experience to the next and then finally, almost at the end of the day, a drop in energy takes place, for most, and a resting into what is all around occurs.      I asked Linsey, after Tender tracks, to draw a Map of the energetic movement of the day.  She showed me yesterday with fine colors, arrows and the part that I enjoyed, remembered and laughed so much about was when most of us laid on our backs (end of day) resting and taking notice of the clouds, sky, weather and the beauty up above.
Now prior to this there was:
• Gathering wood, gathering wood, gathering wood.  ALL the children were very involved in this
• Climbing up a tree as high as they could
• Beginning to explore down the creek to find logs for climbing over and then…
• Going up and down up and down up and down up and down the side of a Redwood Duff hill and playing inside Redwood stumps and slidding down the hill
• Making a shelter with Linsey: Jai, Enzo, Theron, Nico
• Painting hands with mud: Thea, Velia, Hanna, mostly watching, and Ariel
• Using the creek water to wash OFF the mud that then became unfun after it was very fun
• Going on a grand adventure to figure out how to get to where a bicycle rider was
• Observing a large group of older children play games with the water district people
There were so many, many delightful moments on this day.  Seeing Linsey, Theron, Jai and Enzo, mainly, build this great and wonderful structure was delightful and then to witness the other children exploring it with them and enjoying their work.  Later on I was told that “it burnt down.”  The builders did not seem upset, it was very much part of their play. 🙂
Velia started with me first going up a big side of the hill, then Theron, Thea, Nico, Hana, and Ariel. What fun it was to play inside little hidey  holes up there.  Jai came up too and went even further delighting in the height that he had found above everyone.
It was delightful to be invited by  Thea to come and rub my hands all in the cold and smooth thick mud.  They all liked rubbing my hands in it. When some of the mud got on shirt sleeves there was a bit of an upset all around that though which is why we made our way to the creek to wash our hands off.  There was a lot of figuring out how to get across the little creek and Nico showed the way. He did not want to get wet so he just went a little bit further down  the creek until there was no more water and walked across.  Hana and Ariel, for some reason, were having a hard time navigating this yet finally found their way.
This was the time when the home got “Burnt down” and all the big kids were very loud with a game they were playing.  We then decided to exit and go on a short adventure before the day ended.
I invited Theron to find our way up the hill for us and, he did.