Tender Tracks Thurs. Day 24

Dec. 6, 2018
New Moon
Lake Alpine

What a glorious day it was!!  We went to Lake Alpine for the Sunshine and a change of our every day familiar.  We had a simple circle where the story reminded them of Tuesdays tale and brought them deeper into what they were going to do today, MAKE LANTERNS!!  Well, at least the beginning of them.

They all took so well to their jobs!  Theo was and is a forthright Weather watcher, Eamon and Luna were very helpful and skilled snack helpers. They cleaned up all the dishes and folded every mat with care.  Ellie and Uma were very helpful throughout the day as Guardians of Safety helping all that needed their assistance and Josie and Holden took their Earth Keeper jobs seriously. Holden made sure he had the Earthbag with him ALL DAY and when Uma was helping Josie with a cut Josie made sure that ALL the extra bandaid parts were put into her Earthbag.

After circle I got out the tin cans with frozen water in them and the hammers and nails. One by one the children came in and finally they were ALL sitting in a circle, wanting to be close together too, hammering and making holes in their cans so that come the right time, the candle inside will let its light shine out beautifully!  In all the years that I have done this, I have never seen a group take to hammering with such ease as well as such skill! Truly, they were a beautiful sight to behold.

The fun part with this is after you get your holes hammered in getting the rest of the ice out is REALLY fun!! And that is what they did, each in their own unique and creative way and then, off to play down by the creek.

Down by the creek the children found a dead salamander floating upside down.  Its color had changed to white as it seemed that it had been in there for a time.  And, some of the children, at the end of the day, gave great renditions of how the salamander’s body was shaped. Quite amusing!
They also found a turtle basically sleeping, so it appeared, under the water. Nearby it looked like the Guardians of this Lake had built something with ropes going into the side of the hill and a little log bridge connected to a small waterfall.  They loved playing on this! However, I know that the Guardians do projects like this to protect as well as study the turtles so, after a little bit it seemed a good time to move on so as not to disturb the area much.

We packed up and made our way over to the Madrone grove to see if any more Madrones were there.  Ellie was in the front and since she has a very good sense of direction I asked if she would lead the way for us to find the path that would get us over there.  There was a big ravine and water in front of us yet also a path that needed to be found. Ruby said she saw someone go over there and come back. Ellie did find the path and led us on over.

The Burdock “babies”/ little burs got all in Eamons clothes and a few others so they would often stop and pick these out of their clothes and then move on.  They went over the little creek, up a little hill, found the deer path and then a person path that led us right to the spot where we had been before. There they instantly settled in, went back to their favorite trees, favorite games and challenges with sharing their favorite things. And, as always, with a little help by midday they were all having fun playing with each other.

After lunch, and inspired by the boy’s games, Ruby taught them how to work with pretend saws. We look forward to bringing childlike saws for them to use next week.  They are very ready for more tools as their games show this.

Luna, Josie, Uma and I went on an adventure looking for different trees to climb and found many wonderful ones. They wound up crawling inside a low growing Doug Fir tree. The smell inside was delicious!  We found a path with a little creek too.

When it was time to go back we put our packs on but, where was Luna!!!!  Everyone jumped in to find Luna. But, where was she?? She was, truly, camouflaged in one of the trees RIGHT WHERE WE WERE!!!  We had a good laugh and she was VERY proud of herself!

On the way back I invited the boys to be the great Scout protectors of the group. They were to stay in the back and keep watch out for any trouble/”Bad Guys.”  In this play, they needed to listen to the Frog that was croaking behind us and the birds that were singing.  Because, if the frog stopped, it meant that someone walked by it and the birds call gave us information too about any trouble coming or not.  They were immersed in LISTENING! and caught on well. But then, there was water to cross…. (very big smiles and laugh here) and with a little encouragement they moved on from there. But, Eamon had lot’s of burs to take off of his fleece pants first.  I stepped in and helped after a bit.  The burs LOVE fleece!

Back at the bus we drew our picture and story of the day on our board and then, off to home we went.