I can’t do it . . . yet
Our Blackberries had a great week. We spent some time with our animals. We gathered herbs, blackberry leaves, and beet leaves to bring to Snug and Fluff, and we had great fun catching and holding chickens.
The older children spent time with J talking about cardinal directions, sun dials, and even made plans to create a Blackberry Blossom Field Guide.
At Community Circle, we learned the song, “Five Green and Speckled Frogs”, and we played more Clean Up the Yard. One day, we painted logs and rocks to act out the song while we sang it. Another day, we sat on real logs and jumped into the “pool” when it was our turn.
We also had an eco-friendly cutting and punching activity this week. The kids had the opportunity to use scissors or different shaped punches on various leaves. It took a lot of practice to slide the leaves in the slot, especially as they were such different textures. The milkweed worked great. Then they had to really use their strength to get the punch down hard enough to make the confetti piece pop out. One of the children even set up a little scene with the ducks they made.
The children met some new animal friends here at Blackberry Blossom - four Madagascar hissing cockroaches! We experimented with vinegar and baking soda volcanoes. We made OH, SO MANY bubbles with our giant bubble wands. We spent plenty of time cooling off in the mini pool. We painted with flyswatters too!
There was some definite engineering happening this week with tubes, rope, balls, and water. I heard the words, “I can’t” a lot at first. It is frustrating when you have an idea in mind, and you are having trouble bringing it to fruition. But that struggle is where the learning takes place; it’s where you practice not giving up. And even when your idea still doesn’t work, you also learn to lean into making it fun anyway - with laughter, jokes, and letting go. We ended up making a prototype work and had a blast dumping water on people going down the slide. The kids needed to get the water all the way up to the tower, over and over. That took hard work. They did the work. The next day, the tube transformed into a telephone and then a ball shoot. The children loved placing their heads underneath the tube and letting all the balls fall on them.
Finally things got really messy on Thursday. We decided to fill up reusable water balloons with water and paint. It was great fine motor skill practice to fill up the two sides with water, carefully place the balloon on the ground without spilling it, squeeze in the paint, shut it quickly so the water didn’t leak, and then wait your turn to throw it. That poor truck looked like it drove through a paint factory!
Have a wonderful weekend, Blackberries!
