Welcome Spring, Fridays!

I'm so excited that we get to have a second session this spring on Fridays! What a great day to get out and run around with our pals! Let me tell you this group is certainly going to keep Teacher Erin fit. I saw a lot of this today:

 Q had a great time showing the boys all around, in the tiny hole under this tree he fit in as a baby,

 They even had to pose it up for me.

 They were so busy exploring, running, climbing, listening to me try to blab as much as I could to a new audience,

 We made it a fair distance all around the park, stopping for a snack in blackberry meadow and reading a fun frog book there. Back at the shelter they were really engaged in their journals, writing away and then relaxing with some frog coloring. N even created a map showing where we had been in the park today.

It was a wonderful start to our spring session Friday class!

Welcome Spring, Tuesdays!

 We jumped right into Spring session today! We were excited to welcome a new member of our class for this session, and she fit right in. 

We had fun reading frog books, singing our goofy frog song, and hopping around like frogs today. The kids also did a lot of log balancing, 

 

squelching about in the mud, 

playing of Froggy Holler Cafe, 

And doing under a rock investigations,

Which included lots of worm and other insects holding, by AY especially,

 

She insisted over and over on holding another insect or worm and I don't think they grossed her out as much as this picture looks like they did! She was laughing and saying how much they tickled, so it's funny to see her look of concern!

We're hoppy it's spring around here!

Worms and Slugs AND The FH Cafe

Intermixed with my regularly scheduled attempt at "curriculum" this week, was some pretty fun restaurant play. It was a pretty funny combo. We'd talk worms and slugs, then get into the restaurant play/maple pancake factory, then back to worm talk, mostly due to the fact that my books and poems etc. were on the topic.

Fortuneatly, A was helping me find slugs and worms etc. so he kept us on topic some too,

 

Though, with all the hard work of play at hand it was fun all around! Here is I with some pine cone "hot dogs":

 And Q's rice:

A was doing some cone collecting of his own while the chefs were at work,

 This spot turned into the "maple pancake factory" today,

There is a big leaf maple here which provides the main "ingredient" but thankfully there were also 3 hard workers to add the spray on maple syrup, control all the pancakes controls (tree branches etc) and such.

Then, you are served,

 Dirt and pine needles make good pancake toppings I hear. 

We did take a break from the factory work to snack and read some of the interesting books on worms, slugs and snails for fun. But then we were back at it, and since working this hard takes a toll, there was a need for some dirt slide/jumping action too,

 

 I love that while the boys were jumping and rolling around I was content to continue to make her maple syrup topping/dirt cakes.

 They were laughing SO hard!

 One of the best FH moments was when I called out to the boys, "Hey you're rolling around in maple pancakes!" which of course made us all laugh even more!

And a maple pancake tossing party began!

It was a fun day at the factory indeed!

Boeing Creek in Winter

We had a fun trip to Boeing Creek this week. Due to illness in our family we had to reschedule class and doing that allowed us to invite a few older boys (it was a Shoreline Schools in service day). It was a great chance for Teacher Erin to practice having a larger group of mixed ages (as summer camp will be).

We set off pretty quickly for Hidden Lake along the creek trail. The kids had fun exploring the creek on the way there, imagining salmon swimming along (somewhat sadly, cause there certainly aren't), and keeping an eye and ear out for different birds we were looking to spot for our NW bird scavenger hunt. So, at the lake Alexander was quick to spot the mallards:

We also saw what I think were bufflehead ducks in the distance, and many other common local birds. We enjoyed our snacks and book time here by the lake.

But of course just being near mud and water made these boys happy.

J said, he could stay right there in the mud all day:

Exploring the banks:

Watching leaves and stick flow over the waterfall:

Cruising across fallen trees to get to another side of the creek:

Doing an excellent job of counting small mushrooms on the log, he got to 19!

Playing "Indiana Jones" on the sandy banks of the creek:

There was some serious laughter going on there, from these two boys in particular:

On our walk back up the hill, they all gave this behemoth Douglas fir a big Froggy Holler hug!

 

It's certainly fun to check out the same park at different seasons, so we'll be back here in spring as well!

NW Winter Birds

We got to use a special birding kit from the Seattle Audubon Society today to enrich our topic on Northwest native winter birds. It was filled with interesting things like nests,

 

images of birds and their habitats, bird books, and even birds! We got to look closely at 4 different preserved birds, the European Starling,

 

the American Robin, the Northern Flicker,

 

and a tiny pine siskin.

We then set off into the woods a bit with our binoculars on hand to keep our eye out for some feathered friends. It turned out to be a better day for puddle stomping however with some pretty steady rain coming down. So we investigated and played in the water,

dug and poked with sticks,

and Miss. I had fun leading A over and around the stream over and over, giving him tips all the while, until he was all tired out.

 

Then at the end of the session she led us back to the shelter with "O's" that everyone later joined her in making. 

 

We'll look forward to more bird searching later this winter and spring!

Coniferous Trees

We started class with an intro to the topic, coniferous trees and some storytelling of the tale of how hemlock got it's small cones, and the mission to find cones of all kinds during our time today.

 

Then the kids dove right into some rowdy hill sliding! 

 

The kids found this spot and in their padded cozy gear slid down it with gusto over and over. They were so happy being one with the dirt it was hard to stop them, but of course more was to be learned so we moved on up the hill. After another oral tale of the mouse in the fir cone (a repeat reminder from the fall session), we settled down under nature's umbrella tree (western red cedar) for snack and another story. 

Then they were off again this time on an adventure in this ship/boat:

 There was driving of their craft, storytelling about where they were going and what they were doing, and some cooking of nutritious maple leaf pancakes, salal leaf cakes, and madron leaf cakes etc.

"Your order is ready!"

There was some sleeping in the tree as well, a lot of hard work all this play.

Then we had to get off our ship and head to our umbrella again, where the kids worked hard altogether gathering food supplies again, some braken fern noodles,

 

many fish caught on handy branch fishing poles,

and an entire stockpile of cones! 

though really A was gathering these for his mom, fyi

It was hard to leave our feast behind, but somehow we managed for the siren call of the hot chocolate was strong!