Camping Week

This week began with a story. The squirrel had arrived at Skyview Prairie and the gnomes were curious. "Where did you live before you came here?" they asked. The squirrel told them about the Grandmother Tree. He told them about the shade of the giant branches, the games they played, the memories they made, and the home they once had carved at the base of the tree. The gnomes decided they wanted to see this place that the squirrel loved so much, so they packed up their camping gear and set off on an adventure to visit the Grandmother tree. That little story became the thread that tied our entire week together.

We pitched tents in the yard. We had sausages that were roasted over the fire. We made s'mores. We read stories inside our tents. We went on a color nature hunt. Everything revolved around camping because that's where the squirrel's journey had taken him. There was one part of our week, though, that I had been thinking about for a long time and was the reason for writing this particular story for the children. For the first time since The Forest had been cleared, I wanted to take the children back. Not because I wanted them to compare it to what it used to be or that I wanted them to be sad. I simply wanted them to experience it. As adults, we have this tendency to narrate experiences for children. We tell them how exciting something is. We tell them how disappointing something is. We explain why something happened before they've even had the opportunity to notice it for themselves. I really was intentional not to do that. I wanted to see what THEY noticed. When we arrived, it honestly couldn't have been a more perfect day to go. The construction crews were gone. The caution tape had been taken down. There weren't machines running. It was just...quiet.

So we walked. Some children looked around more than others. They asked questions. Some simply wandered the paths we had walked so many times before through the grass which was now concrete. I answered their questions when they had them, but otherwise I just let the experience belong to them.

I think sometimes we underestimate children's ability to process change when we don't rush to process it for them. Then we stood near the Grandmother Tree for a moment. After we'd spent some time here, one of the children asked, "Can we go to Muddy Mountain?" "Absolutely!" So we climbed back on the bike and headed back to Skyview Prairie. As we were walking through the brush to the mountain, a grasshopper jumped to get out of our path and landed directly into the web of a zipper spider. We all stopped.

For the next several minutes we stood there watching the spider carefully wrap the grasshopper, strand by strand. It was one of those moments that reminds me why I love teaching outside. You can plan stories. You can plan camping. You can plan s'mores. But you can't plan a grasshopper accidentally launching itself into a spider's web at the exact moment your group walks by. Nature always has a way of reminding us that we are simply participants in something much bigger than ourselves. I think the children's favorite moment this week happened during our color nature hunt at Skyview Prairie. The older children naturally began taking the lead, repeating, "We're looking for blue...anyone find blue yet. Look for blue, guys" as they pointed to the blue square on their color card. Without anyone assigning them the role, they were scaffolding the learning for the younger children.

As soon as someone spotted the color, everyone gathered around to see it before I clipped it off so they could add it to their card. It was such a simple activity, but they had a blast and it reminded us all how much they learn from one another.

Next week is all about veggies. We will be spending time in the kitchen making refrigerator pickles, saurkraut, and zucchini muffins. I already reached out to our CSA letting them know we're going to need dill, onions, and cabbage in our Monday box.