Oh Deer! What can the matter be?

Black tailed deer

What a magical day!  We arrived to see piles and piles of tempting leaves-about to be sucked up into the traveling vacuum of the city workers.  So, after a fun bit of choosing 2 leaves to make a leaf rubbing with, we took turns walking through the leaves, carefully so not to sully the job of the cityworkers.  The children did very well being super gentle and walking on nature's trampoline. 

Then we were off to see the farm  animals-trying to stay out of the loud trucks' way.  We took turns going into the Hen House to see a hen sitting in her nest.  Then to the sun on the lawn and what to our wondering eyes did appear?  3 black tailed deer!  Close enough to see their tails!  (I grabbed this photo online.)  We watched them for quite awhile.   



Teacher Jen reading a story in the sun.


It was already time for our snack so we headed away from the workers and into the sunshine near the tireswings.  There we found lots of leaves that hadn't been cleared and so were not off limits to stomping, throwing and jumping in.  Yippee!  I can't remember a year quite like this one with leaves so crunchy.

In the leaves.

But I think what your kids are going to come home talking about was the climbing tree trunks we found after snack.  The kids were very creative, some making a fire pit, others climbing high into the trees.  They were helping each other on and off the trees.  Teaching each other how to do things and working together to carry heavy branches.  


I've been reading lately about how group dynamics change with different people.  The group this year likes to make believe and work together.  They like to teach each other how to accomplish tasks; carrying big sticks, climbing up high, scrambling low.  It is a joy to watch them working together and calling each other by name to play and help out.