Our Seedlings started their morning with a couple of stories featuring a familiar, rather persuasive character: The Pigeon! We read The Pigeon Needs a Bath! and Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, which gave us a chance to talk about what it means when someone says "no."
The Pigeon is pretty good at trying to change our minds. He promises to be our friend, offers us money, and comes up with all sorts of reasons why we should let him drive that bus! But when someone says no, what does it mean?
"NO!"
The boys had that one figured out!
After our stories, we packed up for a big walking adventure to Gibbons Park.
As we crossed Blackfriars Bridge, the children were dismayed to discover something very out of place in the river: a couch!
One Earthkeeper shared, "I feel sad for Mother Nature that somebody put a couch in the river."
It's always interesting to hear how the children make sense of the things they encounter in their community. Their concern for the river and the other living things that call it home comes from the relationships they're building with these places.
We continued along the path, enjoying the beautiful autumn colours and noticing the many different shapes, sizes, and colours of leaves. We wandered closer to the water in hopes of finding some frogs, but although the frogs remained hidden, we were rewarded with a beautiful heron, some ducks, and evidence of beaver activity!
Along the way, I also had a moment where I needed to practise something we talk about regularly at forest school: owning our mistakes and making things right.
I'd spoken more sharply to the boys than I'd intended, so I called them together, acknowledged it, and apologized. We talked about what we could do differently moving forward. The boys suggested that when they're running ahead on the path and I need them to stop, I can yell "Stop!" and they'll keep their ears open for that instruction.
It was a simple conversation, but an important one. I make mistakes too, and I want the children to see that making a mistake doesn't have to be the end of the story. We can acknowledge what happened, listen to one another, and work together to find a better way forward.
Our adventure also brought us to a community garden we hadn't explored before, where we were surprised to find flowers still blooming in November!
"The flowers are pretty, look!" one boy exclaimed.
Naturally, everyone wanted to smell them. The boys decided the flowers smelled like vanilla ice cream, although Jenna and I weren't quite getting the same impression. Haha!
We continued along, stopping to pay our respects to the little mole that our Buds had buried the day before, and then the boys began taking turns pulling one another in the wagon.
This led to one of the day's bigger learning moments!
While heading downhill, one of the boys let go of the wagon, sending his friends careening down the path. The wagon tipped, and its passengers landed in a bush!
One boy emerged smiling, apparently thrilled with the experience. The other was considerably less impressed and informed us that his "bones were cracking."
After checking everyone over and confirming there were no injuries, we talked through what had happened. Then, rather than simply putting an end to the wagon rides, we went back to the top of the hill.
Jenna demonstrated how to manage the wagon on a slope, slowing it down and keeping it under control. The boys had an opportunity to see what they could do differently to keep themselves and their friends safe.
Risky play doesn't always go perfectly, and sometimes things happen faster than we expect. What matters is how we respond. This was an opportunity to slow down, assess what had happened, learn a new skill, and carry on with a better understanding of how to manage the risk.
And carry on we did, because we still had a playground to explore!
The boys were thrilled to discover new equipment and wasted no time putting their bodies to work. They climbed, balanced, bounced, hung upside down, and experimented with all sorts of different movements.
There was plenty of physical learning happening here. Balancing, coordinating their movements, judging distances, adjusting their body positions, and building strength were all part of the fun. The bouncing, swinging, and upside-down movements also provided plenty of vestibular input, helping the children explore their sense of balance and where their bodies are in space.
After a while, the boys spotted some geese and became fascinated with watching them. They followed along for a bit, observing their movements and behaviour up close.
Those observations soon became the inspiration for our walk home.
The boys decided they were geese and asked to be chased. When I wondered aloud what might chase a goose, they quickly decided on a fox!
And just like that, our walk became an elaborate game of goose and fox.
The boys tucked their arms behind their backs like wings, just as they'd observed the geese doing, occasionally spreading their arms and flapping to "fly away" from the approaching fox.
At one point, an Earthkeeper sagely reminded me that "Foxes never give up."
Good to know!
The game lasted the entire walk back to Heron Tree Estates, and by the time we arrived, everyone was ready for something a little quieter.
We settled in to listen to Charlotte's Web while the boys built with Magna-Tiles. Of course, building alongside friends in a shared space comes with its own challenges. A few times, someone's movement accidentally knocked over another child's creation.
These little moments gave us another opportunity to practise something we'd talked about earlier in the day: making things right.
We coached the boys through offering an apology, even when the damage was accidental, and then taking that next step that's so easy to overlook.
How can I help make things right?
In this case, it meant helping a friend rebuild their tower.
We finished our day with Diary of a Spider, which was a fun way to go over the concept of journaling before the boys spent some time with their own nature journals.
Before we knew it, parents were arriving!
Looking back, one of the threads running through our day was learning how to respond when things don't go quite as planned. Whether it was a conversation about boundaries, an adult acknowledging a mistake, a wagon ride gone sideways, or a knocked-over Magna-Tile tower, we had plenty of opportunities to practice communicating, problem-solving, and repairing relationships.
And, of course, there was lots of exploring, moving, laughing, and pretending to be geese along the way.
Thanks for a great day, Seedlings!
