Week of 12/9
We had a lovely wintery week, punctuated by our joyous gathering together at the 4th Annual Wonderforest Lantern Walk. Thank you to all who attended and we missed those who were not able to attend. We had a great turnout at the Picnic House and enjoyed some snacks and music from Amaia before displaying our lanterns and a BIG surprise!
With the changing of the seasons, the transition into fall is most apparent in the shorter days and darker skies of winter. It is in the winter months that we are called upon to bring our light to the long nights and winter months, through time together with family and community, storytelling, music, and art. We hope our community gathering filled you all with some wonder, joy, and light as we move into winter.
Over the past few weeks, classroom teachers have been working with classes to create lanterns using natural and repurposed materials. Each lantern turned out to be unique to each group of students. After surprising their grown-ups with their handcrafted lantern, we took them out for a short early evening stroll. The nearby lights from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden added a purple tinge to the sky and intermittent light displays, all adding to the magic and wonder of the event.
Of course, the children's lanterns weren't the only surprise we had in store! Our multi-talented music teacher Amaia, and our puppeteer extraordinaire, Audra teamed up to facilitate the school-wide creation of a large-scale owl puppet. After singing "Owl Fly Away" (music based on the 1923 hymn I'll Fly Away, with new lyrics by Amaia) the owl made its debut to lead us all on a short winter walk.
Winter weather, especially high winds kept us more local this week, but each class was able to get one trip into Prospect Park, in addition to time spent outside in the neighborhood enjoying puddle jumping walks and neighborhood explorations. Here are some ways we kept cozy and active outside in the wintery weather:
Squeaky Mice enjoyed some time navigating the climbing rocks • We got to watch the park workers put up fence posts with some special tools. We wondered how far the fence would go and if we'd be able to use the same spots next week.
Building kept the Flying Squirrels busy as they enjoyed making an intricate string boundary around Mylli’s stump, saying it was “closed for construction”
The stump also turned out to be great for jumping, giggling when they fell down, and saying “I’m ok!” • Others collected leaves in buckets and used them to bury their treasure to hide it from the squirrels. Treasures included acorns, seed pods, walnuts, and pieces of chalk
Jumping Spiders took a long hike all the way to the Nethermead, passing under three tunnels, finding many sticks, and even spotting a hunting red-tail hawk!
Later in the week, the Spiders wrote a song about the winter weather: “it’s cold, brrrrr I wish I had fur I wish I was a bear with furry furry hair it’s cold!”
Ladybugs took a short hike over to the house tree for some hill rolling and pretend construction play
We pretended to be squirrels that lived in the tree and even found a few worms while digging in the dirt.
The Marigolds noticed that some of the mud on the ground was frozen and cracking. “The mud is ice!” observed one Marigold.
After digging in the mud, the Marigolds enjoyed some hill running and hill rolling to keep their spirits and temperatures high on their park trip.
With Gratitude, Sara & Jules
💚Special thanks to Hillary and Joy for sharing their lantern walk photos!