Palo Alto Tender Tracks Thursday Oct.11, 2012

Foothill Park-The Island
Waning Moon
Day 12

Aoife was having fun in Yosemitte while we all were blessed with the muffins her Mom made earlier in the week for Tender Tracks.
And Kaden returned from his wonderful Hawaii adventure.  Re-entry was a bit bumpy but after that the ease and fun of the day commenced.
This day  was the first, ca chunk/settling in to the routine and understanding of  Tender Tracks, day.  It was so joyous, easeful and just fun.   Circle time was the easiest and most cohesive so far.  They all just stayed there and sang, and listened to the story, with delight.  This group in particular is so ready for “jobs” as they each want a turn to do the circle time tasks.  Usually the group is ready for these jobs much later in the year so, expect them to be sharing with you about them within the next couple of months.
The story was about How Bat Came To Be.  Since we are singing songs with Bats in them for this Harvest/Halloween month, a story about how bats came to be seemed apripos for the season.  ‘ Once upon a time…..and that is how Squirrel’s bravery gave birth to Bat. ‘   As we looked to the sky for weather information it appeared that we would be gifted with more sunlight and blue skies than actually happened toward the middle of our day.
When we got to Foothill Park, the sky started to turn a bit darker yet still blue so we brought our coats anyway though it did look and feel like it was going to stay gentle.   We had a lot of fun finding our way to the Island.  There were only a few children that had actually experienced the island before so they took the lead and we all made our way down the trail to find this magickal play ground.    When they found the bridge to cross over they were all over joyed and quickly we went to where we set up our lunches and there we laid our things down.  As usually some were very hungry and began to eat while others, HAD to explore some.

THE ISLAND EXPERIENCE
Wow, what fun!!! There were a great deal of running, hiding, exploring, howling like Coyotes and laughing as we played all around this wonder filled Island.  Audrey and I played off of each other as we would hide and make sounds to see if the children could find us. Either she was with them looking or I was.  One of my favorite moments was when Giselle got so into the game that  we all were together accept Giselle and Audrey.  “Audrey, Giselle, where are you?” we all called.  Then we heard a little voice, “Audrey’s over her, Audrey’s over here.”  We looked all around, we looked all around and then, and then, AHHHH there was Giselle with the biggest smile as she was tucked away and hiding on one of our hiding rocks.  She LOVED playing the game just the way Audrey and I were.  It was delightful to see her ease with this.
I did lot’s of hiding up in trees or behind certain bushes.  Audrey and I wound up hiding together at one point and one by one when a child would find us they would hide with us until there was a substantial group for the other group to find.
We had fun noticing the Coots in the water and some Mallards that stopped by too.
It came time to slow down as some of the children were getting tired after runnning and hiding for the past hour or more so back to our lunch spot we went and there I told them a story I said I was going to tell them for the past week.  As they snuggled in to hear the story the sky got darker and darker and the winds began to pick up.  We had another hour give or take before we had to leave so Audrey reminded me of the long way back as something we could do to get warm. BRILLIANT!  So, packed up we got and off we went on a grand adventure of warmth and discovery.   The warmth did happen yet the need for a few to be first in line came to pass with a bit of intensitiy. The trail was only big enough for one comfortably and Evan, Alice, and Emme Really wanted to be in the front to the point of angry ways and means.  There was some work around that and a settling came about.  Kaden just wanted to be with Evan as Evan wanted to be with Kaden so they stuck together but, at the end of the walk Evan said that he did not want to play with Paul and Paul was quite sad about that.   I told them a, TRUE story, about when I was younger a very best friend of mine used to play and play and play together ALL the time.  But after a bit of all that being together we started to get very grumpy with one  another. We started to fight with one another. We started to even PUNCH! one another and we said we did NOT want to play with each other.  After, not one day, not two day, not three days but after several days we started to really miss each other and after a WEEK we REALLY wanted to play with each other again.   And after this story, Evan asked Paul if he wanted to play with him, but not before  Emme and Miu and Alice said that they wanted to play with Paul.  His face beamed with happiness over this.  And then, we needed to pack up and goooo home!