The last two weeks have been full of "camping" adventures at Harmony's House! One of Friend "H's" top plans has been to go camping with his bunny. He usually tells me about his plans for his rabbit as soon as he comes in the door. He can't wait to get to the House Area, find the rabbit, pack him up in the carrier and get going into the tent! He takes such good care of his rabbit, making sure the bunny has food, water, bandages when he needs them, and a soft bed for naps.
Friend "K's" favorite plan for the tent is to read. Her top stories include Acorns Everywhere!, Green, and Count to Ten with a Mouse. She most frequently chooses the baby deer to work with. Her deer listens to stories, takes naps, and eats in the tent. She uses fabric squares to make fluffy beds for her deer.
Today, the school friends elaborated in their camping plans to include packing for, and preparing food, for an outdoor picnic. We had everything including sunglasses, food and silverware, forest pets, and a ring toss game! It was awesome!
Outside of the House Area, we have worked with forest animals in the Toy and Puzzle Area. Today we built a forest "small world" with trees, Native Americans, animals, acorns, and pine cones. In addition to naming different animals that live in the forest, we had interesting discussions about the usefulness of acorns and pinecones to both flora and fauna of the woods.
During Small Group, we used counting bears to think about forest animals and math. Friend "H" worked on sorting into "family groups." He put all the yellow bears together into one family, all the red bears together, etc. He also worked on making A-B patterns and used the cards as a guide to build a pattern.
Friend "K" has practiced A-B patterns a lot. She was challenged to make more difficult patterns based on bear size and color. She used her bears to make A-A-B and A-B-B types of patterns. She really focused and enjoyed making patterns, "something that happens over and over."
Bears, bunnies, and deer aren't the only animals you find in the forest while camping. Bugs are a big part of the natural world! Both children enjoyed working at the Alone Table where they matched insect x-rays to the picture cards.
For snack, we also really got a kick out of eating "worms" and "dirt!" You can't go camping without getting a bit dirty! But thankfully this dirt was totally edible and super yummy: chocolate pudding, crushed oreo cookies, and gummy worms.
Camping, however, usually includes eating fun snacks and meals! Although we didn't have a real fire to make foil dinners, roast hot dogs, or fire up a s'more, we did do s'mores in the microwave for snack one day, and they were super yummy!
We also worked some literacy and math into making trail mix. Sometimes you hike when you are camping, and taking trail mix with you on the trail is a good idea. We used a pretty fancy recipe to mix up our trail mix! ;) Stir it up! Fill your bag! And now we are ready to hit the trails!
