Seedlings: September 8, 2026

We started our morning gathered together at Heron Tree Estates, where the Seedlings had the important job of showing our new grown-up where Finny the Fairy lives. Finny had left us a letter wishing us a good day, and before long we were packed up and heading down to The Flats.

Almost immediately, the kids started noticing garbage.

We had brought along the garbage picker, and they were eager to put it to work. I always appreciate how quickly they notice when something doesn’t belong in a place they care about. There wasn’t much convincing needed. They saw garbage, knew what to do, and got to work taking care of the space.

When we reached the river, we found another change. The water was higher than it had been and moving quickly, so instead of wading in, we stayed on shore and invented another way to play with it: leaf races. We tossed leaves into the current and watched them take off downstream.

Silly Goose Beach was looking different too. Leaves were scattered all across the sand, one of those little reminders that even though the afternoon sun was still warm, fall is starting to make itself known.

We cleared away a patch of leaves to build a sand castle, complete with a moat and sticks positioned around it for defence. This worked wonderfully for a while.

Unfortunately, the castle was later struck by both an asteroid and several giants.

The giants looked suspiciously like Seedlings!

The sand became a place for drawing too. We practiced making shapes, and one child drew a map and worked an “M” into it for McDonald’s. I love when literacy sneaks naturally into play like that. A letter has a reason to matter when it represents somewhere on your map.

We also settled in with some books and discovered that a bee can flap its wings about 200 times in a single second. Naturally, we needed to investigate this ourselves. We tried flapping our arms 200 times and timed how long it took us.

We can confidently report that we are not bees.

Later, we wandered over toward one of our favourite rock-hunting spots and unfortunately found even more garbage. Once again, the kids were all over it. Their enthusiasm for cleaning up The Flats was one of my favourite parts of the day. Caring for nature doesn’t always need to be a big organized activity. Sometimes it’s simply noticing what needs doing and deciding to help.

Back at Heron Tree Estates, the afternoon slowed down a little. Some children sat in the sunshine near the dome making creations with Perler beads, while others dug in the dig pit. At one point the wagon became part of the digging play. I’m still not entirely sure what its intended purpose was, but its inventor seemed to know exactly what he was doing.

We spent a little time nature journaling too. One child transformed his paper into a mask, while others were perfectly happy simply cutting paper into pieces. Sometimes the materials lead somewhere completely different than I expected, which is part of the fun.

It was a day full of noticing changes: faster water, fallen leaves, garbage that needed collecting, letters appearing in maps, and new uses for familiar materials.

Thanks for a great day, Seedlings!