Forest Day May 21, 2018

We were so busy digging, building, running, and exploring in the rain. It is hard to believe we only have one more forest day left this year. We are looking forward to sharing what we having been doing with our family's at the upcoming Family Forest Night--Hope you can make it!

Here are a few of the highlights of our day:

 Building

 Building and balancing

 Making mud pies with frosting

 Stirring, adding water (from their water bottles) and dirt as needed

 Designing a bug race complete with a finish line

 Noticing "the writing" (bug trails) on sticks

 Wild strawberries blossoming

 A little more water

 Cleaning by the fire pit

 Whittling

 More bug trail "writing"

 Whittling

 Helping each other take a shower in the rain

 Running and playing with the kindergarners

 More play with Kindergartners

 Back to mixing and measuring

 Roasting marshmallows

 Roasting marshmallows

 Yum!

 Digging to make ink for the ink machine

 A sloth moving v-e-r-y slowly in the "rain" forest

 Special cake recipe

 Selecting just the right leaves to save for later

 Tiny baby dragonfly under the leaf

 Tiny plant just starting to grow--right in the center or dirt clump

 Planting leaves

 Ink machine half buried in the ground so it can't tip over

 Up here she discovered she is taller than me

 Trying to catch rain drops on their tongues

 Kindergartners came to play with us 

 Scooping water from the newly formed puddles to add to the dirt mixture

 The birthday cake is almost done--the sticks are the candles

 We noticed bubbles running down the tree and forming a white bubble clump on the ground 

 Getting water off the leaves

 Leaves even ended up on faces

 Putting the finishing touches on another cake

 Roasting marshmallows

 Roasting marshmallows

 Marshmallow time

A yummy way to end our day

One standard addressed today was:
Sensory Organization
C.EL. 1 Uses senses to take in, experience, integrate, and regulate responses to the environment.

Forest Day May 14, 2018

We were very busy digging and pretending today in the forest. We also found a few critters--bugs, frogs, and a turkey roosting in a pine tree. Here are some of the highlights:

 One group wanted to build a bigger house

 Some building some resting or at least pretending to

 Mixing a surprise birthday cake (it's for the girl in the middle)

 Working on the house--the "baby deer" is inside so they can take care of him 

 More mixing the recipe while making plans

 Digging and they found a rock

 Keeping the "baby deer" safe and feeding him lunch

 Twirling a stick while passing it between fingers

 "Do we need more dirt?"

 "It's a surprise for you but you don't know"

 At the doctor's office

 Dr checking them over with his machine

 Rooms are being made in the house

 Balancing

 Balancing

 Building with really long sticks takes teamwork

 Almost impossible to see on this picture but there is a turkey roosting in the far pine tree

 Concentrating, communicating, and teamwork to move and place the big sticks

 Trying to move the log--realized they needed more people

 With more people they could lift it

 A few minutes down by the pond--we saw at least 4 frogs

 One was on shore the rest were in the water

 Climbing by the pond

 Waiting turns and climbing over the pond

 Balancing

 Feelingthe water

 "I did it all by myself!"

 More balancing

 Taking care of a horse egg

 "There's really tiny pine cones on here."

 "I'm Bendy and this is my ink machine"

 More horse eggs in the nest

 Teeter totter

 Zebras climbing up

 Another zebra going up

 Watching an ant crawl on the rock

 Dug up a big "egg" and carried it over to the nest

 Fishing for bullheads

 More fishing

 Three friends on a bent over tree

 Digging to find more "eggs"

 Jumping on the shovel to get it deeper in the ground

 Digging

 Tried taking off boots and socks to see if jumping on shovel worked better--it did not

 Boots back on to jump on shovel again

 Wanted to try going barefoot in the digging area

 Another rock is found

 Bugs crawling on the log

 Baby bird in the nest

 Working on the ink machine

 "Put a dirt blanket on me"

 Playing own game in a quiet area

 Building and balancing

 Dirt blanket

 Bird hatching

 Bird flying away

 Mixing up some soup

 More mixing

 Another bird wants a dirt blanket

 Burying her feet in the dirt

 Balancing while deciding how to tie the boards together

 Moving logs over to the house area

 Quiet conversation while playing

 Adding water to the soup

 A little more

Log in place for the house

One standard addressed today:

Health and Physical Development

A.EL. 2 Demonstrates behaviors to meet safety needs