States of Water

It's a great time of year for exploring the three different states of water. We filled pans of water with colorful leaves, flowers, rose hips, pine needles and a piece of string, and we left them to freeze overnight. Then we hung them up on tree branches to glisten in the sunlight and watched them slowly melt again as the day warmed up. Pots of water left in the mud kitchen also froze overnight and we worked at breaking up the ice with hammers and chisels. The ponds in the big creek had a layer of ice form and we broke it up with sticks and by hurling heavy rocks onto the surface. We even made an ice palace out of big triangular chunks. Back at basecamp we made steam by putting ice on the hot rocks that line the fire circle and watched it evaporate.

We've also been building a new treehouse ladder, bathing the baby dolls, climbing trees, hills and mud mounds, making leaf piles as tall as Chris, drawing and telling stories in our journals, making shadow puppets on the tipi, and digging ant trails. There's been so much rich dramatic play each day as we pretend to be characters from Paw Patrol, kitties, "heroes" and mermaids. We've been visiting the animals daily, feeding the chickens and noticing how thick the alpacas' fleece is growing as we head into winter!