SPL graduated from outdoor preschool on June 3, 2010 and it's taken me this long to blog about it for a lot of reasons -- mostly it's been hard thinking that he won't have this wonderful learning environment next year. When he started in September 2008, he was tentative about tree climbing, about being dirty, about getting wet. As you can see from the photo taken on June 3 in this small stream, he doesn't have those limits any more :-).
I was making a photo album for the class so had a chance to go back through the old photos and found these from the 1st day, September 3, 2008:
and
There were 9 kids and 2 teachers in the class and they traveled on their trusty steed Ganesh 3 days a week to unmanicured parks in the area. They sang songs, had circle time, celebrated nature, tracked animals, learned what is and is not poison oak, climbed trees, slid down hills over and over and over again, got filthy dirty and wet, decorated themselves with charcoal bits from old fires, and most importantly supported each other through the social emotional challenges that are inevitable when you are 3 and 4 years old.
Here are some photos from the last day of Tender Tracks (at Foothill Park):
the morning started off with this excitement and the kids were wonderful to watch. They were quiet and peaceful in their excitement and were able to get pretty close without scaring the deer.
(an icon of the park where the kids meet each morning to start their day): One of the iconic parts of outdoor preschool is the Laying Down Tree (yes I know the English is wrong -- sorry :-). As its name says, it literally lies against the Earth making it the perfect place to begin climbing :-).
The kids started their school morning climbing it and each got better and better as the years progressed. This year we had so much rain that the tree suffered a major setback and had to be modified. Turns out the modification happened on the last day of outdoor preschool: June 2. The kids watched the workers as they cut part of the tree down (not all of it thankfully) and sang a thank you song. Unbeknowst to all of us, one of the dads asked the workers if he could have a section and they said yes so he took it home and cut cross-sections for each family! What a treasure :-)
Grandma spider and the story box: this is how the circle time starts. Grandma spider and the story box always have something interesting for the kids each day. The stories range from teaching about weather, to stories about how Douglas Fir trees got their cones, to stories about harvests, and how to be a friend and so many more relevant, yet fanciful, insightful stories.
Each day of Tender Tracks, Wendolyn would count with the kids how many days they'd been together and mark a new mark on their stick to represent the current day (a great, relevant, contextualized way to include numbers and counting -- wonderful!)
each day, a magical character named "Jimalong" would hide different objects in the woods for the kids to find. On this last day of Tender Tracks,
They found all of them and then Keeley and Wendolyn presented 1 unique necklace to each child as their graduation gift.
The triangle was where the kids and teachers sat and the camouflage covering was where the parents sat. Connecting them was the "rainbow bridge" of pine branches. Looking up,
SPL was recognized for his kindness of spirit (each child got his or her own superlative).
After graduation, we got to
again for the summer (all of the rains had washed September's hand prints right off). And we made
(an old Howe family tradition too - Wendolyn even bought a White Mountain cooler!).
And we couldn't leave w/o a group photo:Â one with the
and
And to end the day, we all went up Slippy Slidey and
Wonderful, wonderful memories that I know will form SPL's foundation and live in him wherever he goes. Thank you Wendolyn, Keeley and the families of Tender Tracks!
