Tender Tracks Friday: Day 31

May 17, 2019
Almost Full Moon
Lake Lagunitas

We started our day at the sunny meadow to make the most of the dry day. Ruby told us a story of a small scorpion the children found under a rock on Thursday, so many Tender Trackers were curious to try to find it. No scorpions were found on Friday, but Siena did find some snails and built them some small snail homes. Sticks were turned into bats for baseball play and everyone found their way into the limbs of the big Redwood at some point in the morning.

For morning circle we played a round of ‘Little Tommy Tittlemouse” which was fun for all the children to guess who was knocking on their back at the end of the song. They are all very good guessers of each others voices! I hope we get a chance to play with the parents on our final day together.

At snack we feasted and many children had seconds on our rice cake ‘pizzas’ (with sunflower butter, cashew and raisin toppings!) We used silly voices to order our ‘pizza’ and toppings and said very grand ‘thank yous’ and ‘you are so very welcome, indeeds.’ When a friendly spider visit our snack circle, Ruby retold the tale of Grandmother Spider finding the stories of all things in the world.

For our adventure, we sought out more sunshine and headed up the path and along the way met a very nice dog named Hank, and his caregiver. Hank looked like a mix between a bear and a dog and was super sweet and nice to pet. Siena, Charlie and Blake would sometimes turn into rocks and we would knock on them and say “Knock, knock, rock! Please join us on our walk!” to wake up the rock children to continue on the trail.

We saw a very large turtle and a small turtle, both on a log growing grass in the water. We headed towards our Pirate Ship tree and passed our favorite Baby Tree on the way. Later, Rohan, Blake and Miles hid on the side of the trail for the other children to find with searching eyes, and listening ears (for the eventual giggles from behind a trailside tree!)

At the Pirate Ship, Blake, Miles and Charlie climbed aboard and sailed off for adventure on the high seas, while Margot, Rohan, Siena and Violet played Family on a nearby bench that became their home base. Margot and Rohan were the little babies that sometimes caused ‘mischief!”

The children were also searching for the perfect stick to be their own Weather Watcher stick, as big as their thumb and as long as their arm. We also practiced our whittling with rocks and with Ruby and a knife in efforts to each create the ideal Weather Watcher stick to anchor their feather.

During lunch, Miles spotted a small caterpillar make its way across our lunch circle and to a nearby tree. Woodpecker laughed loudly in the Oaks and knocked holes into the high branches. On our hike back past Baby Tree, we all stopped for a special group hug and some of us saw another tree with a mossy heart on it! Then, we heard Turkey calling and then finally saw him! Up the hill, stretching its neck out to ‘gobble gobble!’ and we called back in our best Turkey voices. We shared our gratitude for Turkey, Caterpillar, Pirate Ship, Family, Turtles and a mossy green heart.