Tea Time
We started the week on a wet canvas. It rained heavily the night before. While we had a few sprinkles during the day, we didn’t encounter any real rain. However, we heartily welcomed the cooler temperatures, light breezes, and cloudy skies after the last three weeks of intense heat.
On Monday, we began the morning beading and chatting. We had miniature “trees” set up and the children placed beads on them like leaves. One Blackberry made an apple tree. Another started a keychain, and then others made some bracelets. We found some really cool beads in our collection like a giant frog, letter beads, and even beads that change color when activated by the sun! We discussed making hemp necklaces and even making beads out of paper. I am looking forward to expanding our bead-making activities as it was a real hit with this group. The little guys also had a ball kicking wood chips, finding huge or oddly shaped wood chips, and hiding toy trucks in wood chips. J even found a “hag stone” wood chip!
We did some animal care and checked in our pumpkins. The patch is going strong, and everyone is looking forward to carving, painting, hammering, and eating them! We have about nine going now with several small buds we spotted as well.
Next we did some cardboard collages. The kids used scissors, kid cardboard cutters, and got to experiment with our awesome Chompsaw to cut various shapes to glue on to their cardboard bases. Think table saw with NO chance of getting cut. They are amazing! Some kids leaned abstract, some 3-D, and some created realistic scenes. The glue didn’t dry in time, so we plan on painting them next Monday.
On Tuesday, one of our little Blackberries came (as he often does) dressed in a costume. So I naturally grabbed our costume bins so everyone could join in his fun. We had various characters and even a chimpanzee feeding the rabbits this morning. The rabbits sleep in a hutch at night, but have free roam of their run and access to their hutch during the day. Their hutch has two sections, a larger side that has a wire floor and front for ventilation and for poop and pee to fall through. The other side is more like a den, completely enclosed, save a small door, and the floor is wooden. I initially liked this set up as it will provide protection from harsh winds and extreme cold. I also liked that one portion of their hutch had a wooden floor to protect their “hocks” which is the back part of a rabbit’s hind feet, where most of their weight rests while sitting. If a rabbit only lives on metal flooring, you run the risk of their hocks getting painful sores and becoming infected.
I was putting bedding or hay in the den area to encourage coziness. While it probably was cozy, it became more of a bathroom for them. Rabbits are known to be easy to “house train”, so they essentially trained themselves to pee and poop where I intended them to sleep! It is not sanitary in the slightest! I bought a metal litter pan for the run area and showed the kids that my plan was retrain them. Well, the plan has not worked all week. They are either doing their business randomly in the run or heading back up to their bedchamber! Phase 2: I am going to cut the wooden bottom out from the den and replace it with wire. However, I am not worried about their hocks as they have free reign in their large enclosure during the day. We will still attempt to train them in the litter box as we go along.
There is always a new problem to solve here. Most of the time, I enjoy the cycle of working through the process of many failed attempts and finally coming to a solution or cutting my losses. However, I am certainly not immune to wanting to give up when I just can’t get it to work, develop a bad attitude, or often, can’t find the time to work on things in the manner I wish.
Life is like that. It is full of big, real problems. But it is also full of hundreds of tiny, annoying ones every single day. I think that modern parenting and education has removed a lot of problems from our children’s lives and it has backfired on us. Kids NEED to feel frustrated. Why? Because life is full of frustration. When they learn to deal with this frustration of things not working out, they can begin to train their mind to solve a problem, put on more clothes, change their mindset, ask for help, etc. This is one of the reasons I started this school. Being outside, being cold, being wet, dealing with someone who is frustrating you, and even being bored is a problem for kids - but one they can overcome.
The kiddos have been really into riding bikes. While we don’t have a huge driveway, we do still have room there or in the yard. I see this as a great challenge for the kids. Hopefully by the end of the year, we will have lots more kids riding through the grass, over the small hills, and around the garage and gardens. This is the kind of riding that builds grit and muscles and self-esteem.
This week during Circle Time, we introduced “Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me” and a game called “What’s Missing”. The song was met with mixed reviews, though they were starting to enjoy it by Thursday. The game however, was a hit. I took various natural objects such as a rock, a walnut, some bark, a peach pit, an old potato, a stick, etc., and hid them under a handkerchief. The children then closed their eyes as I removed one object. They then had to guess what was missing. It was great fun, and quite difficult if we had more than five objects at a time.
On Wednesday and Thursday, we decided it was the perfect weather to brew some tea and make some eggs. We just used a hot plate this week, but hopefully we will start cooking on a fire soon! There is something so cozy about tea and rain, and I absolutely LOVE cooking outside. I truly believe that little kids were made to learn how to be human outside. They spill, holler, trip, and drop while preparing, eating, and cleaning up during mealtimes. This is never a problem when eating outside! I am working to create more of a full-time eating zone/outdoor kitchen in the garden area so that the kids can continue to partake in the meal prep and the cleaning up too, not just the eating. This slow, intentional meal-time will help the children with actual skills, build community, and encourage rest and mindfulness.
I hope you all have a peaceful and restful weekend!
