Palo Alto Tender Tracks Day 57, May 8, 2012

Waning Moon
Hidden Villa

Everyone was here and  back from holiday.  It had that beautiful togetherness that often happens when we have all had a break.  Circle was fun and we were all together.  Since Kashi was talking about his trip to Hawaii and I have been changing our morning greeting to the day a bit I thought I would introduce a Hawaiian morning gratitude song.  They took to it though it will take a bit to learn the foreign words.  I then brought in another new song and they took to that as well about little beings coming out from under the earth:

Five little ones lived beneath the ground, One climbed out and went to town
Listen to his story he was feeling rather shy, snap, snap clap, he turned into a butterfly.

Four little ones…she needed to be free…she turned into a Bumble bee.

Three little ones….he sang a little chant…he turned into an Ant.

Two little ones…she needed a hug…she turned into a Lady Bug.

One little one…he sat beneath a log…he turned into a Frog. Ribbet, ribbet, ribbet, SPLASH!!!!!
A very lovely little song.

The story was the same one that I told right before Holiday.  You can find it in the library One Fine Day.  I elaborated on it to bring in more usage of our senses and the focus for my telling was to bring in mapping, sequential learning, memorization and deppening into a sense of place, Hidden Villa.

When we got to Hidden Villa we ate straight away and then they all paired up, accept Bodie, and got some drawing books and crayons and began to make a “map” of how the story went.  They needed to find woods, a place where an old woman would come out of the woods to chop wood and be able to get milk from a cow.  We needed to map where the Cow was, where grass was and a creek. Then we needed to find a path that led to the chickens and where they would have an egg and where the chickens food was for a piece of grain and where the farmer would be.  They mapped all of this and were so into it. Well, I thought all were until the end of the day I discovered that Giulio, though he was partnered with Jasper and LOOKED like he was drawing really was only playing with Jasper. So far, these sorts of things have not been Giulio’s joy’s. Playing and running though ARE!!!!!! How normal of him!
Lucy, Anjalie, Gracy, Kashi, Alexi, Jasper, Paul and partly Bodie (until we went to water) were really into making these maps.

It was a hot day so stopping to play at the creek seemed in order.  They had an opportunity to not follow our map to it’s end and stay at the creek but all but Bodie, Kashi and Gracy put their shoes right on to go and find the rest of the map.  They were right on it too because we had little time for all of this.  They are so ripe for this sort of thing and they drank it up with delight and focus.
Giulio walked barefoot and a bit slower then everyone all the way back. When I was needing to get him in the bus a little faster I offered him a piggy back ride but he said “No, I want to keep walking.”  I let him walk until the ground became filled with mowed down sharp edged thistles.  He did not mind then.

This was a beautiful day back from holiday.