August Notes

We've had a wonderful start to the school year, with a lot of new friends at Fairywood! Goldenrod, jewelweed, and woodland sunflowers are all in bloom here, and we've noticed many swallowtail butterflies and bumblebees around the bright yellow flowers each morning. We've been picking blackberries and green sorrel to eat from the fairy garden. We've been finding toads, earthworms, spiders, moths and millipedes around basecamp. We've been touching soft moss and digging in sand and mud. Our first week was quite warm so we spent a lot of time cooling off in the pools of the big creek, where we've also discovered crawdads, minnows, bullfrogs and water snakes.

We've been learning each other's names while playing our favorite "who is missing?" game called Groundhogs and singing the Name Game song. Printing with sponge shapes and power drill painting have been popular art activities. At the mud kitchen we've been mixing up potions with grated chalk, sawdust, colorful ice chunks, and bubble water, while also experimenting with the flow of water from our rain barrel using old culvert pipes and waterslides. There have been many opportunities for climbing, balancing, and other gross motor activity at the spruce trees and the ninja line, and lots of archery practice with the bow and arrow. The farm animals have been happy to see the kids again, and we've been collecting (and cooking) eggs, petting the soft alpacas, feeding the chickens and helping refill their water buckets.

This year's class has already shown a love for oral storytelling and acting out stories with music. So far we've told Pickin Peas, Abiyoyo, The Firekeeper, The Bubble That Wouldn't Pop, and the Slop Bucket fairy tale.

Here are some photos from the first two weeks: