Tender Tracks Tues. Day 5

September 26, 2017
Waxing Half Moon
Lake Lagunitas Oh no not really/Roy’s Redwoods

We went to go to Lake Lagunitas but the road was closed due to potential fires.  We ran into a ranger later in the day who shared that if there was a fire up there they wanted to make sure no one was there who needed to be evacuated. Therefore, we went to Roy’s Redwoods. This turned out to be very great as it was a hot day today and the Redwoods cooled us off very, very nicely.

Devin and Avaline came in with tender hearts.  We did our best to create ease and comfort for them. We went slow, gently and with warmth to begin our day in the bus with stuffies as well as some sound guessing games.  FYI: The games are all preschool style nature connection foundation games.  I had them close their eyes, then I made  a sound, then they guessed what they thought the sound was.  I made a couple of different sounds They enjoyed this very much.
This is just a beginning step of the millions more “steps” that can be used, for a life time in the world of connecting to Nature.

When we got to Roy’s Redwoods they immediately found the wonderful Redwood play houses there and they all wanted and LIKED playing Hide and Go Seek!   How fun that was. Vita turned into a Fairy and was flitting about sprinkling everyone with Fairy dust, Puma was a “bad guy”, Austen tried that on for awhile and Avaline was playing Bad Guy with Puma. She said very clearly that she liked playing this game.  Devin joined in now and again being “Darth Vadar” with Austen.  Neither one of them really knew much about this character other than he is a Bad Guy and Austen said he had a Lightsaber.    There was a goodly amount of dying which I did my typical line of questioning to the phrase ” your dead.”  “And then what happned?” I asked. They tell me and I say “And then what happened…..” and on it goes as I discover how each child thinks about this word.  With Avaline you go to Heaven. It is very fun there but you cannot come back.  Austen was, basically, though  not completely, “nothing”  Puma didn’t really give much of an answer that I recall.  He was just having a lot of fun withit in his games.  I mainly asked him if his Bad Guy had a coat and what he ate and where his parents were and such. At that point he finally said, “I’m just pretending.”  🙂  It was all very delightful and fun, as young ones just are!

We had circle with freshly made applesauce that was still warm from being cooked this very morning!   The children ate it up along with little Aussie bit muffins.
After circle and some play I brought them over to a GRAND bouncy tree there.  They all came accept Devin who spent time talking with Ruby about, I believe, Autumn.

The children had to figure out how to climb up and walk along the horizontal bay tree in order to get situated where I could bounce them up and down. This process happened several times and then we all went to find Ruby and Devin.  They were found!!! ( well, they weren’t really lost but the children like to find each other! 🙂

We took the children on the short cut to get to another bouncy tree place as well as the great big Redwood Tree Cathedral but, when we got there there were three women who were dancing and painting their faces inside it. The children were mesmerized.  I asked if the women minded them watching. They said no.  However, I thought it best to steer the children in a different direction so, this is what happened for the rest of the day:

Eating lunch, climbing along a long Bay Tree, bouncing on another tree, finding an incredible tree house already made, making pretend fires and working together, hearing a story about Guardian Oak from Ruby and story from me about taking care of the Forest in a good way. Mine is a bit of a funny story and Devin really got the funny part. He laughed and laughed.

When the children found the built up house Puma became the person organizing everyone to make a pretend fire inside.  Austen and Devin were the Stick Boys and Avaline and Vita were the leaf gatherers. They were all quite happy that they were working together.  It was truly a fine site to see!
Throughout the day there was more and more and more of them all being together playing together, sharing together.  That was a lot of my particular focus today, aiding their friendships and providing situations that would give them opportunities to develop this.

Vita got stung by a Bee,not a Yellow Jacket, I believe. She and I went to tend to that while a nice Park Ranger came by and gave the other children little gifts.  We then had to go back to the bus but the children first really wanted to see what those three dancers were doing!!!   They looked, they talked with them and then they said goodbye.

When we got in the bus water was given, seat belts buckled and Ruby was drawing the pictures of the day. Even though we had to finish up the sharing of the many wonders of the day while  we drove back.