Week 3 Update - Ms. Drea’s Explorers
Hello Explorer Families!
We're three weeks in and if you aren't already aware... we dug, and we dug and we dug some more.
What better way to bring in the Fall?
Unless you're a cricket named Jump ( by Saturday's Explorers) in which case it's always better to hop.
There wasn't much hopping these past few days, but there were a bit of dizzying trips during our morning round (or 2 or 3) of Blind Samurai. Why play these outdoor games at the start of our day? Proprioception and the Vestibular system. When humans can find balance in their bodies, their awareness develops keenly. What better way to prepare our children for a world so off center and in flux? It's a slow satisfaction watching young children slowly (literally week by week) wake up the other senses they depend on to catch their sighted Samurai peers.
Isn't it wonderful when our little ones aptly describe what we will or cannot? "rocks" "leaves" "dirt" "Poop!"... out of the mouths of explorers came the olfactory notes of my home garden's compost in a jar. Friday and Saturday, Explorers gathered round to see if they could spy the compost critters on this lesson's worksheet. When they'd had their fill, we walked over to THE Compost Piles-- our farm is proudly producing our own with the contribution of several businesses who see the value in sharing their spent grain, mushroom substrate and brush wealth.
If the sun hadn't planned on burning brighter, both days we'd have spent our whole morning on our mound of ready made compost. Explorers took turns between magnifying glasses and hand shovels, sifting compost into a bucket and spying for roly polies, spiders and the oh so common ant herd.
Saturday we fed the chickens before heading back to our classroom for a snack. One of our explorers had a face to face with one of our roosters, and thankfully nobody was hurt. Friday we headed back to draw critters before lunch, Saturday the Explorers delved into this after. One of our explorers found a pink gem on the ground-- a foreshadowing of the magic that was to come.
When our lesson came to, we planted seeds! On Friday, it was a Sunflower house we were after, and the children took turns spreading compost, sowing seeds and taking breaks in the forest nearby. Afterwards we had some time so we walked over the cows and practiced our best cow calls. One of the cows was happy to see us and offered a friendly closeup. Good thing, because our Friday Explorers were HUNGRY and hot by then.
On Saturday our Explorers worked up their appetite by preparing our classroom garden pots with soil and compost. It was all (ok, mostly) cooperation and fun as we took turns sifting and shoveling.
Who wants Roman Chamomile? Sunflowers? Lemon Mint? Everybody had an idea and we sowed our seeds well, making sure to water them all for good measure. We've STILL got pots to plant, so thank goodness there's next week.
Our Storytime was Up in the Garden Down in the Weeds by Kate Messner, and what an appropriate story with gorgeous photos to boot. Everybody enjoyed finding the hidden compost and garden critters on the pages. As usual, Saturday's Explorers had a little more bandwidth for books-- it's a smaller class and less energies for everyone to manage.
Free play on Friday was focused on Territory. This was my bad, as my little one joined us and I'd failed to prepare him for my having donated his house kitchen to the Explorer free play space. YIKES-- parenting fails do happen! Still there was some prime mudpie making on Friday and a bit of master sculpting from one of our Explorers too...
And Saturday, my! Freeplay was all about potions and restaurants. Something about digging in the dirt stirs the imagination and for the first week since we've started farmschool I hardly heard any complaints about "being dirty". I'm sure you'll agree that it was by far the "dirtiest week", but nobody seemed to care.
And we can all be thankful for that. A child happy in soil is a child happy in life and in love with nature. For those of you whose 6 year old Explorers cannot stop talking about their potion preparing, you might consider attending our 8 week, Tuesday Herb School starting October 12
Looking forward to seeing you all next week and thank you so much for letting your kiddos explore with us each week.
Until then,
Drea M.
512-552-0524