Palo Alto Tender Tracks Wed. Feb. 13, 2013

Waxing Moon
Day 21
Hidden Villa

Jasper was absent and Zara was home sick with the family.
The weather was just beautiful and even though it was very cold this morning the day did not proceed like that but rather, like a new spring arrival.  Have you heard the birds singing?  Have you noticed the Sun rising a bit earlier and going to bed a bit later? Could it be that Spring is truly on it’s way?  It does and did appear so on this day and all we can do is pray to the Rain People to bring Spring showers/downpours, to aid our rivers, streams and water supplies.
I told them a story that a past employee created about How Rooster Got it’s Colors.  My intention was to tell yet another story about the beauty of the Sun ( rooster loves the Sun and sings to it), and the love all around us. So, I thought we could hear that and then go visit the Roosters to really see how many colors and what colors they have on them. Well, that just did NOT happen.
The children appear to be in Spring mode as well as an, I’m four or almost four, mode: Wild and Wonderful, as the book proclaims fours to be.
The energy was scattered and alive until about 11:45/12.  This is when, what I call, baseline, finally found itself and the children settled down, settled in and were playing with each other sweetly.  Prior, Miskha was walking off on his own wanderings and we needed to call him back into group consciousness.  Davey too wanted to wander in his own direction.  Some of the rest of the children went with Mindy on a wander and found BONES, that they were very excited about and others were in between us both playing.   Oh, but I didn’t say, we wound up right away following Miskha down to a place that he appeared to know in the dry creek bed.  The children wanted to go there and play and eat so we went.
Duncan found a rope that was stuck in the ground underneath a large tree trunk stuck in the creek bed.  We tried to pull it out and pull it out and pull it out. The other children tried to pull it out and pull it out and pull it out but, we couldn’t. It became a boat and when the bones were found they were “From the captain of the ship” said Duncan!
There was eating and exploring and finding Olive’s from the tree that you could paint you body with.  There was playing under, over and around the bridge where great Trolls of various sizes lived and mighty Goats that were able to eat up the Trolls.
Each time I thought it might be a good time to see the Roosters, because Harper REALLY wanted to see the “piggies” , the group was clearly not going to go anywhere but where we were so, in accordance to being a child centered and play focused nature awareness school, we STAYED WHERE WE WERE!!!   It was truly commical, developmentally on target and beautiful to see such engagement.
The day was simply put, a beautiful Spring Style Day with life budding up all around us.