We had a lot of creative climbers this week! The kids used the ropes the create all sorts of obstacles to climb on. Foster was particularly interested, as he usually is, in pushing his body and finding new and challenging ways to climb. He also really enjoyed using the rope as a swing. Idris also had a lot of fun figuring out how to get through uncomfortable situations while climbing and climbing as high as he could. This activity is wonderful for a number of developmental areas. First, the untangling of the ropes and repositioning of them takes an incredible amount of fine motor skills and dexterity. Secondly, the actual climbing and swinging take a tremendous amount of gross motor skills. Not all the children are capable of doing these two things yet, but by observing the others and beginning to try on their own, everyone is having the opportunity to develop such skills. Lastly, the risk assessment the children are learning during this activity is one of the most crucial skills the children are allowed and encouraged to develop here at The Wild Woods. When children are not told to be careful or told to stop because they are not being safe, the children are allowed to push their limits of comfort and work past what they are currently capable of!
We had some chilly mornings this week. We have a metal lid to the fire pit that allows the heat to be radiated outwards towards the whole fire pit. Elliot asked me what it was and I told him and explained "it's so we can all stay warm in the fire pit." He exclaimed "UGH finally" as he plopped down by the fire to warm up.
Indigenous People's Day, or Columbus Day, was invasion of the big kids! We got some special Wild Woods kids of years past visiting while being off school for the holiday. We had fun adventuring with them and hearing about all the things they liked to do when they were in the wild woods.
We found some really interesting (some say icky) slime molds. These are called wolfs milk slime molds. They are fun to poke when young, they explode with this bright pink liquid. This type of sensory exploration is a regular activity throughout The Wild Woods.
Rigel and Ari were having the best time together on Thursday. They made a "boat" out of found items and we're having amazing adventures at sea together the whole day.
At one point a storm threw them out to sea!
But it's ok, they got back to the ship.
Unfortunately, food supply was low and they had to resort to eating raw fish and baby sharks according to Ari (because the big sharks would be too big). By allowing kids to engage in highly imaginative and creative cooperative play, the children of The Wild Woods are able to develop social skills that will help them thrive as they continue to grow.
We were sitting around the fire talking about how smoke sometimes tends to follow you around the fire. William shared with us that his grandmother always said "smoke follows beauty"
We got creative with obstacle courses this week. It was particularly fun to watch the triplets Nico, Sadie and Chloe do the course. You can clearly see the difference in each ones strengths and how their brains work differently to figure out the task at hand. Sadie is very analytical and cautious about how she approaches it and she takes it slow, Nico keeps a quicker pace and tends to think less about his next move, and Chloe jumps around like a little monkey, balancing on the most difficult parts of the course with ease.
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