Today we had Marci White subbing for us, since Robin’s dog became very sick late last night. We are so happy to welcome Marci as our regular Tuesday substitute. Marci is trained as a Montessori teacher and used to run her own Montessori preschool! We also welcomed Evelyn today from Atlas Agile Learning Center. Atlas is a small school devoted to self-directed learning and located in Winterville. Evelyn is 12 years old and has requested a 2 hour per week internship with us so look for her on Tuesday mornings regularly! 

While we waited for the whole group to arrive we played “Mother May I” in the field with Marci.  They more or less got the rules straight, and most enjoyed it. It was noteworthy, though not surprising that they seemed to like for the rules to be enforced. Being  told “no” to your question is an integral part of the game (if you don’t say “mother may I”!) 

In our morning circle the children were given “edible hand warmers” — baked potatoes in foil.. They held and enjoyed the warmth for our hike in to our first play site and then most of the children did eventually eat part of them to “warm up the insides” as one astute child noted! We went to the new space that we discovered last Thursday that is clearer and flatter. The children were very intrigued to see that the water in the small gully had dried up in the four days since we had been there. Miles and our intern Evelyn discovered ice crystals when they were peeking inside some decaying stumps and the rest of the group were offered magnifying glasses to see if other spots around the site had any ice. A big grape vine wound around one of the trees and someone noticed that it looked kind of like a woman with a cape, like a superhero. “This is cool! Like a little hideout.” It was there the prior week, but a new discovery today!

As always, there was some negotiating around sticks, pushing, poking with sticks. There was also considerable time spent finding and dragging big, long sticks around. If it’s a very long stick, the educators typically say  “move far away from where anyone is.” But that can be hard to do when friends are trailing after you because of your interesting stick! Miles built a dam in the gully with sticks and leaves. Willa and Charlie were inspired to build a similar one nearby. Miles guarded his dam and told Larkin that she could build her own nearby rather than help him; we welcome that kind of boundary setting!

Then went over to a “new to them” part of the park - the outdoor amphitheater. The kids took turns performing, acting out an animal, then the audience guessed what it was. They seemed to really like this and were attentive for one another. In the middle we had them sit more closely together so they could be a real audience until the “performance” ended. Most of the kids wanted to perform 2 or 3 times. After the first round with animals it morphed into superheros and creatures like dragons, unicorns. Being a respectful audience member is a good life skill and since it emerged rather organically, I think it was really meaningful to the children. We had a long walk back and ate lunch late. It was a wonderful day!