Our Nature Hike in the Woods

We love our nature walks in the woods, this week we were focusing on looking for deer. This month is called the full buck moon because this month the bucks grow antlers. We were soooo lucky to see a deer track, it looked rather small, probably a fawn or young doe but the children were sure it was a buck!!! Scroll down to see our photos of the deer track and our fun! We tried to be so very quiet in hopes of a deer sighting, but it was soooo hard! :)

More Fun this week...

We have take a couple walks to the horses this week, the children love this activity so very much. On our walk they could hardly wait and decided to samply their carrots before we arrived!!

Caterpillars!!

This week we learned all about Caterpillars! We have been reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and "Free to Fly". We have made caterpillars at craft time and have been searching for them on our nature walks.

May Day Fun

Here are some pictures we wanted to share with you of our May Day Festivities. Because of scheduling we broke it up in tow days, one day with the girls and one day with the boys. The May Day Cones came out so beautiful. Each contained a small white votive candle, some Sweet William flower seeds and fresh flowers with a note that said "Happy May Day".

Faces of Blossom House...

Faces of Blossom House...

Earth Day Celebration

Earth day occured on Friday and we took the opportunity to celebrate all week! We planted sprouted oak tree acorns and each child went home with one for their house and made indoor terrariums. We took a walk on Thurs. to gather litter from our roadside. We read the book London Frogs a story from a local author about frogs saving the polluted waters. (our own Connor illustrated page 1 in the book).

Felting

The children love felting...something about the warm soapy water and feel of squishy wool in their hands.... Here is our felting process!! Miss Jamie suprised them when they took their egg home a chick had hatched inside!!!

Clips from our busy week....

Our highlight to the week has been taking a walk to visit our horse friends Midnight and Brownie as the children have named them! They love carrying a basket of carrots to them, we have found they prefer the carrots to the apples. It is a longer walk and I do believe that walking is so good for children. We have such good listeners on our walk..

Monday and Tuesday we worked on constructing a bird nest helper bag. The children busied themself with cutting yarn, ribbon and wool into 3-4 inch pieces. They loved using the scissors and as we know scissor use is to good for developing fine motor skills! We then went on a hunt and found some feathers for the bag as birds love to use feathers in their nests. We stuffed our bag full and hung it by our bird feeder. We have kept a diligent eye looking for any visitors and have yet to find any. Looking forward to another fun filled week with your children felting wool easter eggs and finishing our spring baskets, and celebrating earth day in a VERY special way!!

Last Soup Day

Well, Spring is finally here and we will be moving from our soup day on Thursdays to fruit salad day. The children really look forward to bringing something in to share, it really makes them feel apart of the day. They practice their fine motor skills in cutting up their produce and feel more "invested" in trying and eating the finished product. (Plus while cutting they munch on the fresh vegetables which I love!) As we all know fruits and vegetables are not always easy for children to like but hopefully our soup day made trying new things a little easier.... Here are a few snap shots of our last soup making day. Enjoy!

Rest Time

Many have asked how we manage to get 5-6 children all to rest at the same time, the answer is in our nap rhythm. Rest time is somthing they look forward to, some even ask when it is time! We have the same rhythm each and every day, although the story may change, and some weeks we may have a fable, fairy tale, native american story or nature story, the sequence of events is always the same, predictable and special. Easing children into resting rather than demanding is acutally an easy process and much more rewarding. Lately each of the children has taken a turn in "playing" or imitating rest time. They get out the mats, lye down babies, get their story and begin playing their recorder. This really drives home for me how special this time is for them, how much it is influencing them and really warms my heart that they feel what I bring to them is imitatable. Here is a peak into our story/rest time.... The children and I hope you enjoy...

Circle Time

Greetings Blossom House Families, I would like to share our Spring circle with you. Now this is only the second day of the circle, it will be nice to see a begining and end to the Spring circle. I am looking forward to posting a finished product in a few months. It will change and evolve over the next few months, many of the songs will stay the same, some will change. For example we have been singing "Winter Goodbye" to wrap up circle , in a few short weeks I am hoping to phase that song out and add a more Spring like parting song. Something such as "Tisket Tasket" will likely stay with us for the duration of our Spring circle, based on their love of the circle game. The circle will evolve based on our group and the needs of the children and what we might be covering for curriculum that . For example I have already altered circle just a hair!! We have been praciticing the "Eensy Weensy Spider". It is a familiar traditional fingerplay that all children love. Finger plays are wonderful for children to exercise their fine motor skills as well as coordination. Well to begin I have been trying to have them touch their thumb to their pointer finger to help them with the climbing spider action. They were having difficulty with this, so.... we added "Where is Thumbkin..." ahead of the "Eensy Weensy..." to help them identify the names of all the fingers and warm up those tiny fingers!!! Also, noticing the childrens tremendous energy level and silliness during circle, I felt our circle needed more exercise and larger movement. I rely on many different educational modalities and incorporate them into Blossom House day, Enki education relies a great deal on proprioceptive movements and believes we must master certain physical skills in our brain developement, so.... I knew I might find something physically challenging for the children within my Enki material. We found a "Peeper" movement game to add to our circle, it fits perfectly with our nature story for this time period "Spring Peepers". Let me just say how physically exhausting this Peeper circle is!! we wiggle like snakes, and hop like frogs and stretch like daffodils... I am huffing and puffing when we are done! Circle at Blossom House is designed for the children to come together, greet the day, greet eachother and acknowledge the seasons while exercising our bodies. We have a really great time and each one of them loves circle time! Please enjoy our video clip of day two of Spring circle from last week, and Happy Spring to all!!!

Welcome to Lunch at Blossom House