Outdoor Jan 8&9

We are back to Thursdays and Fridays for the remainder of the year as we welcome new students to our Outdoor Program.

Thursday

Today we welcomed LeRoy for his first trial days of our Outdoor Program. We began our day with some free play while everyone got acquainted with the outdoor program space.

We began our morning circle with a review of guidelines and respectful actions. First we got into moving our energy and the tools to support moving our energy (magic hand, tapping, shaking, sounding, stretching, and breathing). After we sang our 7 Directions Song to call in new energy to support ourselves for the day. Then we each chose an animal card and enjoyed a 5 minute silent sitting meditation. After our meditation time was complete, we shared what we noticed during our meditations and heard about the messages of the cards we chose.

After morning circle we enjoyed a snack and a story called, "Beneath" which was utilized to extend the Sprout learning from this week around the things we cannot see in nature and inside our friends and family members too. During our story, students drew on the whiteboard beings from the story that were above and below.

After snack everyone enjoyed some free play together with the dollhouse. It was a great opportunity to observe the new group dynamics.

After free play we headed out for a hike in the sunshine. Everyone had a great time challenging themselves to climb trees, collect sticks for a fort for next week in our fort spot, and searching for Rose Hips. We found the Rose Hips and learned how to ask a tree permission before harvesting and listening to our inner knowing that is connected to all living things. We also found some fallen pine boughs and collected some needles to make some cleaner back at school with all of the clementine peels from lunches today.

Back at the school, we enjoyed lunch, checked on our avocado pit (it's cracked open!!!) and poured vinegar over our pine needles and clementine peels. The cleaning mixture was set in the cupboard and will remain there for the next 4-6 weeks until it is ready to use as our cleaning spray in the lunch room. We packed up, drank our Rose Hip Tea and enjoyed some more free time playing before heading out to play on the snow piles with the walkie talkies.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/c74324_b187d230c1ab4183930bcf0da09c8af5/360p/mp4/file.mp4

Friday

Friday was our friend Leroy's final trial day at TSOP. I designed our day based on discussions with him on Thursday regarding interests.

We began in morning circle moving energy in fun ways, then singing our 7 directions song together. He already knew most of the song and was singing along. Our card pulls and meditation time were magical, as Leroy put it regarding our animal card messages ❤

After circle we learned all about snowflakes from a book we read, while we enjoyed something from our lunches. After our story, we found a recipe for gingerbread that needed to be split in half. We set to work with paper and created squares for cups and cut them until we had half the amount we needed, labelling the fractions as we went, and moved down the list. We ventured into the kitchen to find all the ingredients and tools we needed. We found a BIG situation....we didn't have any ginger! How could we make gingerbread cookies without ginger?!

We checked the map and decided to walk to a nearby store to see if they had ginger. We sang a song Leroy made up the whole way! While we walked, we picked up little things we noticed on the sidewalk for looking at under the microscope later on. When we got to the store we learned they did not have any ginger. Then we adventured to Shopper's Drug Mart and they didn't have any either! As we made our way back, we met my friend Pam on the sidewalk and asked her if she had any ginger....and she did! She gave us some ginger and we walked back to make our gingerbread cookies.

The cookies were delicious!! While the cookies baked, we did the dishes and sang made up songs about what we were doing that were silly and fun.

While the cookies cooled, we looked at our found items under the microscope and pretended to be scientists. After playing we cleaned up our learning spaces and spent time playing with the dollhouse until the end of the day.