Jan 27, 2022
Although our program is play and nature based we still have tons of opportunities for Early Literacy from story time, to field guides our students are seeing, learning and writing letters.
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Although our program is play and nature based we still have tons of opportunities for Early Literacy from story time, to field guides our students are seeing, learning and writing letters.
Our Wild Roots Community is committed to being Earth Defenders. Our educators began our 2021-2022 school year with Youth Vs. the Apocalypse Climate Rally.
Our curriculum is built around honoring, loving, respecting and defending our natural world.
January 2020- Playschool
In January, Teacher Mega made brown playdoh and brought a scat identification sheet and passed it around. The children made different kinds of scat with playdoh and then for the next few days, we studied animal scat with magnifying glasses. We talked about how scientists and trackers use scat to identify the animals that live or roam in a particular place.
Other activities included watching banana slugs (we even found 4 eggs!), making hot chocolate and practicing using a padded bow and arrow.
October 2019- Playschool
We started out the month celebrating the Persian Festival of Autumn, Mehregan. We made a beautiful alter with rose water, a pumpkin, leaves and Eucalyptus seeds. Later in the month on Indigenous People's Day, we read the book "I am Sausal Creek" that is written in the perspective of a water shed that witnessed the colonization of Ohlone land.
We had a few indoor days due to the smoke. On those dats, we made playdoh, painted wooden figures for imaginary play, did puzzles, designed and carved a pumpkin, and made pumpkin muffins!
Other October activities included writing secret messages on logs with charcoal, painting gourds, a funeral for a ladybug, creating a fort, a Eucalyptus pod stamp painting project, and sawing and drilling "tree cookies" that we'll later turn into bracelets. It was so much wearing Halloween costumes to school too!
3rd annual Wild Roots Community camping trip 🏕💛🌲☀️ Thank you to Fred at Forest View Apple Ranch for being a wonderful host!
August 2019- Playschool
In August, we were busy playing in the creek, making nature art, constructing fairy houses and taking our homemade swing game to a new level by adding sitting sticks as well as a trapeze!
We were so excited when Teacher Mega returned from her wedding and honeymoon. We made a comic book story of our summer experiences to share with each other. On the last day of school, we had a graduation ritual that included flower crowns, wrote in each other's journals, and then reenacted seedlings sprouting, spreading roots and blooming. We ran though a curtain hanging between two trees off into the sunlit meadow, representing new journeys and adventures!
Wow, what a wonderful first year we all had together. So thankful for our amazing teacher, dedicated parent teachers, families and kids that made this year so rich and magical.
July 2019- Playschool
July was filled with lots of art! Local artist Shikha Hutchins visited and led the kids in a life-sized paint blot inner self portrait project! Other art activities included leaf rubbings, tree decorating, and observational drawings of plants, bugs and animals where the kids pretended to be scientists.
Building on Teacher Mega's puppet show on equity and how to end a race in a tie, we decided to act it out ourselves one day. The kids came up with the idea of holding hands to get to the finish line at the same time and had so much fun doing it! They wanted to do it over and over again.
Other activities and projects included observing nature with our hands while blindfolded, spontaneous dance shows, munching on kale and lettuce in the community garden, rope swinging, a field trip to the Presidio, and so much mud cooking! We also saw a coyote and a few hawks in Glen Canyon.
June 2019- Playschool
This month, besides our regular forest school activities like hiking, creeking, and climbing trees, Teacher Mega introduced some wood working tools which the kids thoroughly enjoyed. One day, she also tied rope between two trees, draped fabric over it, and told the kids it was a magic curtain and they could use it however they wanted. It quickly turned it into a curtain for a play about dragons!
Teacher Mega introduced the concept of equity this month with a puppet show about three animals running a race, all with different abilities/skills. We asked the children how the race could end in a tie and they came up with some creative ideas.
Animals we saw this month included a beautiful owl on a low branch that we were able to watch for a long time and a mama racoon with two baby racoons climbing from tree branch to tree branch!
On the last school day in June, we made some delicious stone soup together and then the children sent Teacher Mega off to her wedding with a gifting ritual that included Mega sitting on a throne in the creek, a nature crown and lots of little gifts from the children and parents.