Forest Day March 19

We had a chilly, but sunny day to be in the forest. We were very busy building, digging, exploring, balancing, and imagining. Here are a few highlights:

Building--

A bench to "hold stuff"

Cutting to make a castle 

 Working on an animal trap

 Ramps

 Row Boat

 Robot

 Arranging special items for "the Wolf Father"

 Relocating logs

 Lining up logs to build a fence

 Seesaw

Seesaw on log turned over

Digging--

 Plans to make it deeper

 Using a stick as a tool

 Planting a tree (branch)

 More work on planting

 Putting sticks in to grow

 Filling a bucket

 Mounding the dirt to make the tree stand and adding water

 Digging up the "Goo" they created with water

 Making a nest

 Filling the hole in

 More digging

Taking the dirt back out of the hole

Exploring--

 Poking rotting stump just under the surface

 Adding water and making "Goo"--touching it 

 Adding water--deciding how much

 Adding even more water

 "Goo"--water and dirt--they said it was not mud

 Discovering ice on the north side of the log

 Looking for porcupines and frogs--they did not find any

Making a puddle

Balancing--

 Laying on her back and balancing

 Walking across the log

Walking on "the wall"

Imagining--

 Power Rangers collecting "energems"

 Puppy playing fetch

 The robot got the master so the puppies attacked the robot until the master sat up and told them to stop hurting the robot (tree)

 Cooking soup

 Found an egg (rock)

 Cooking

 Animal Transformers that can change into any animal they want to--except one said she would never transform into a fish

 A wolf--howling and laughing

 Cooking a birthday cake

 A horse and a unicorn

 Waiting for the unicorn egg (rock) in the nest to hatch--it was a girl named "Doughnut"

A horse 

Next week we will be on Spring Break so our next trip will be in April.

One standard addressed today was:
Scientific Thinking
C. EL.1 Uses observation to gather information.

Forest Day March 12, 2018

 Lots of track today--deer, raccoon, & rabbit and others

By afternoon the melting snow was making a tiny river on the path.

Today we were busy digging. The ground is softening up and many children were focused on digging. In the AM they were "looking for treasure" and creating a mermaid pillow. In the PM they enlarged the hole and were creating nests for the dinosaur and pink donut eggs. Both groups had to use their problem solving skills and communicate about who was going to dig, where they would dig, and how to share the tools and rocks.

We used our muscles to move objects, balance, and build.

 "Look what I have (leaf); I'm going to call it bacon"

 Large rock is the mother and small rock is the egg that will "hatch lots of pink donuts, but we can't eat them cause they are human."

A couple children in the morning had a plan and asked to use a saw. At first they were going to make a chair for me, but changed their minds and made a robot instead.

The AM also used teamwork to get a branch out from under the log.

In the afternoon, more snow had melted so there was more mud. One child made "whiskers" and others just got messy because they were working so diligently.

We took group pictures with the kindergarten classes today too.

One standard addressed today was:
Emotional Development
A.EL. 2 Understands and responds to others’ emotions.