Picnic & Play Updates

Summer camp threw off my rhythm of posting notes from P&P each day, so I'm taking some time now to catch up!

We are having a peaceful afternoon outside at the mud kitchen and he's doing sensory play (of course) and giving his sensory bin plastic animals a bath (of course) with a sponge, a tub, and a spray bottle of water.

Zac has still been enjoying music while he's playing and sleeping. Yesterday he spontaneously started singing a blessing to me, "Welcome to Our Table" by Nancy Foster from the Let Us Form a Ring CD, which was really touching.

Right now the favorite CD is Clare Beaton's Mother Goose Remembers.

Monday, June 18

We did the complete "Springtime Garden Circle" by Laurie Clark and then made a recipe together. It was Roasted Chickpeas with Paprika and Cumin.

Tuesday, June 19

Sensory play celebrating mud! We did the "Puddles" Timbre activity (minus debrief) from The Children's Music Studio: A Reggio-Inspired Approach by Wendell Hanna, p.100, and then read "The Muddy Farmyard" from The Breathing Circle: Learning through the Movement of the Natural Breath by Nell Smyth, pp.126-127. I didn't use any props for the story. We followed it with lots of play in the digging pit and mud kitchen outdoors.

Wednesday, June 20

Getting Zac used to doing a story on more than one day (which is a big part of Waldorf circle times in preschool/kindy), we again did "The Muddy Farmyard." This time I did it with a green flowered silk for the farmyard, a brown smaller silk for the mud, the wooden stable, wooden animals (horse, cows, pig, chicken), and my little green glass frog from the Nature table. He loved hearing the story again and being able to see me act it out.

Then we did the "Puddles" movement game again and I added in a new instrument! On Tuesday we did a drum for walking around your puddle string, and a clacker for jumping in and out of your "puddle." On Wednesday we added the shaker egg, and when you hear the shaker egg you have to shimmy all over. This is auditory discrimination, it's great fun, and kids love taking turns to play the instruments and lead the group in movement. I thought it would work better if I flipped the order around, with the story first and then the "Puddles" game, and I was right.

Then, of course, it was outside for sensory play in mud.

Thursday, June 21

Today was celebrating growing. We tried doing our circle time outside, which was beautiful but a bit distracting for the kids. We read "The Snake Who Didn't Want to Change" from The Breathing Circle: Learning through the Movement of the Natural Breath by Nell Smyth, pp.137-139, and then ran around in the field and played with bubbles. This was so pretty! We noticed that when bubbles first land they are clear, but if you watch them they will begin to swirl and shift colors and you'll see colors reminiscent of iridescent Mama Snake!

Friday, June 22

Another pedagogical story from The Breathing Circle: Learning through the Movement of the Natural Breath by Nell Smyth, we did "The Little Lemon Who Couldn't Wait," pp.128-129. I had a lemon and an orange as props for the story. This was followed by a fabulous citrus sensory bin with lots of different kinds of citrus! (Although I should note that you get the best variety of citrus in the stores in Winter, so that's the ideal time to do this.)

One of the children tried squeezing all of the fruits in order to see if it would make a layered rainbow of juice. What a cool idea! They have different colors of skins... why not different colors of juice? In fact, only the blood orange juice stood out as a different color but it layered so beautifully in the glass. Then we all enjoyed our fresh squeezed juice.

Saturday, June 23

Returning again to the idea of repeating a story, we again did "The Little Lemon Who Couldn't Wait." This time I followed it with Citrus Printing. I only offered oranges and lemons, to match the fruits in the story. Each child got to choose one color of paint. They printed their fruits for a while, then tried dipping the seeds into the paint and painting with the seeds. Interestingly, both boys ultimately squeezed a ton of juice into their paint jars and then dipped in their brushes and just painted happily with the juice/paint combo.

Sunday, June 24

Blueberry picking again! We just love this little nearby blueberry farm.

I have a whole collection of blueberry recipes which I want to try now:

• Blueberries & Cream Oatmeal (aka "Purple Oatmeal")
• Simple Blueberry Overnight Oats
• Banana & Berry Hemp Seed Pudding
• Blueberry Blender Pancakes

Plus, we noticed that, just like the little unripe lemon in our story, unripe blueberries are green!

So... my next post will be lots of photos from these past few days.

We have just one more week left of Picnic & Play before I head out for my summer vacation at the beach, where I will blissfully have low or no cell phone reception or internet connection. So here's the plan for the next few days. Monday/Tuesday/Thursday we will do the "Rabbit's Adventure" circle play by Nancy Blanning, from volume 1 of Movement Journeys and Circle Adventures. Wednesday we will go to the Farm. Friday we will do "There's a Thief in My Garden" from Suzanne Down's book of Summer Tales, and then as soon as my Human Body camp is done we will pack and hit the road.

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