This past week, you may have seen a Forest Dreamer or two craning their necks to look up into the sky. Don’t worry, its just a phase… of the moon!
We kicked off our week with a super moon shindig in celebration of the big and beautiful (and rare) sight. Seeing Irvine ‘after hours’ was pretty exciting! We spent time chatting, warming ourselves by the fire and taking a thrilling hike to the darkened meadow for a brief but totally worth it peek at that moon! The night was concluded with a reading of Owl Moon by Jane Yolen.
Talks of the skies continued into the next day as we discussed the different shapes we see in the moon as the month progresses. All of the descriptive words we had been using, inspired us to write a new poem about the night sky. The Forest Dreamers very much love their poetry! The poems were then transferred to our journals and were accompanied by some beautiful night scene paintings. If we traced around our water bottles with a pencil and cut out the tracing, we found it made a pretty accurate looking moon for our picture. We used crayons, colored pencils and purple paint to inspire a breathtaking night sky!
Our Native American folktale for the week was about a folktale favorite, the coyote! Did you know long ago, the Coyote was in charge of the moon? His job was to look out onto the Earth over the people to make sure they were safe. However, Coyote’s curious personality had him snooping into people’s lives rather than overseeing their safety. The unanimous vote was to remove Coyote from the sky and hire a more discerning animal for the job. This story sparked some amusing discussion and gave birth to our second dramatic performance (stay tuned for video)!
Thursday was a day of giving thanks. We invited some families to come by and join in on the festivities! We spent a relaxing day at the bottom of the meadow cooking ‘snake bread’ and enjoying each others’ company. We added jelly, cheese, hummus, cinnamon and even Forest Dreamers specialty butter to our snacks!
We used our artistic skills to create a card for Mr. Wally to thank him for all of the hard work he has done for our trails. We will present him with his card when we return to school!
Give Thanks, Forest Families!
