Tender Tracks Friday Day 7

October 26, 2018

Waning Moon

Lake Lagunitas

We started another day at Lake Lagunitas at our sunshine spot near the water trough. The water element brought joy to our play as we stirred with long sticks and splashed with big rocks. There was more Raccoon Family play as well as talk of zombie stew, though it wasn’t clear if the stew was for zombies or actually made of zombies.

At snack time we had a story about animal helpers. Afterwards, each child closed their eyes and reached into the mystery pouch to choose a special symbol representing their new animal helper job from the bag. Siena was like her Raven symbol and became the Weather Watcher, using a stick tied with a feather to see the wind moving and share the weather with the group. Rohan and Margot were the Rabbit symbol, signifying the Guardians of Safety, they each carried a first aid kit to support the group. Charlie and Miles were the Banana Slug Snack Helpers, and they assisted the children and teachers in cleaning up snack. Blake was the Raccoon, tasked with being Guardian of the Earth, carrying a bag to collect things that don’t belong on the land, such as trash. Each Tender Tracker embraced their new role and became proud of their animal helper responsibilities as we journeyed through our day.

The children’s new roles led us to other adventures as we went in search of a feather for our own weather stick, as we were borrowing the weather watcher tool from the Tuesday/Thursday group. On our walk, we saw a great blue heron over the lake, and Blake and Rohan used long sticks to measure the depth of the water under the heron’s roost. Soon, we all ended up in a grove of logs and stumps, with fallen and standing trees. The children balanced on fallen trees and made small shelters to climb into. Siena used pieces of charcoal to ‘paint’ her stick and log home. Later, we all dug in a decaying log (looking for treasure!) with various tools of sticks and rocks.

After lunch, we returned to the creek for big splashes from rocks hurled from the bridge. The children, at Miles’ urging, all lined up with their rocks and dropped them at the same time to make the biggest splash! We also collected green redwood cones to put in a jar of water collected from the creek. Everyone was in awe of the rich red color the water turned with this natural dye. This red is one of the hues that graced our special capes from Sunday’s Harvest Festival! (If you weren’t able to attend, we’ll have a cape waiting for you on Friday!)

We finished our day by launching fairy boats into the creek and sprinkling ‘fairy dust’ (sand) over them from the bridge above. With smiling faces, we shared our gratitude for the day, sang our goodbyes and journeyed back to Peri Park.