Spring Finale!

This week we ended our spring semester, and we found ways to celebrate an amazing school year every single day! Our last day of school was a Family Fun Day in the water. We fished, splashed, squished water beads, poured, sailed, and sifted in all of it's sensory glory.

We remembered good times and savored early friendships.

 Next week, summer school starts with even more amazing adventures.  <3

The Dandelion Fluff Calls for Us

This is a wonderful time of year to be outside in Virginia! Harmony's House is seeing SO much joy, curiosity, courage, and learning happening on the playground. Please be inspired by these young learners, and spread the ideas like dandelion seeds in the breeze! Children everywhere ought to have wonderful outdoor experiences in spring!

Animals in Spring

Some are hatching! Some are growing! Some are changing! And it's been an adventure at Harmony's House this month to watch, study, and play with animals. We worked with critters indoors and out.

We looked at bird nests, seeds, and local bird figurines in our play.

We got brave and found many earthworms, slugs, beetles, ants, a lizard, and even a salamander in the damp earth under our playground mats, not to mention the Daddy Long Leg we caught in the playhouse.

We studied pictures of a variety of caterpillars, talked about their defense mechanisms, and made our own models with play-doh, beads, and toothpicks.

We watched for birds.

We pretended to BE birds in an extra large nest!

We visited birds on the farm! We saw real ducks sitting on their nests, with an abundance of eggs. We pet chickens and got their breakfast ready for them.

We visited the growing piggies who are always hungry! Good thing there is a variety of available food in the springtime for animals to eat.

We adopted classroom caterpillars and have watched them grow faster than seems possible! All of our caterpillars have successfully formed cocoons.  

We've floated our duck toys in the pond and learned a new song:

"Ducks in the pond, QUACK a happy song!

Mother hens cackle the whole day long.

Birds in their nests, and wind in the treetops,

All join in singing, a happy song!"

We have hopped Little Bunny Foo Foo through the forest many many times.  <3

We made our own nests for the birds with baskets and clothespins and pretended that corks were the eggs!

Our butterfly habitat is prepped.  Now we are just waiting for our butterflies to emerge! It is so hard to wait!

Just today we were very creative using tree slabs, bricks, and logs to build a big duck home. It was unseasonably chilly today and it seemed fitting that they should have somewhere warm to go to huddle inside together. What was most beautiful though about this plan was how collaborative the children were. Almost every child helped in someway to build this, by carrying bricks, coloring them with chalk, finding the ducks, and placing them carefully inside. 

Spring is here, animals are busy, and so are we. <3