Some Lost Photos

A recent hike led us to a hidden platform that was calling Lucy to "build a fire". So she began collecting branches which inspired Edie of course. Then Edie really wanted to try Lucy's technique for breaking the branches by standing on them and bending them. Lucy was very patient and helped her break many branches this way. It has been fun to see the teaching and learning taking place these days. Helps balance the yelling and hair pulling. :)
I was showing Lucy a couple types of fire building styles. We built a log cabin style with Edie's branches and Lucy chose the "pile" method. We tried the teepee but weren't as successful. And don't worry, no fires were actually lit. Not that it would have worked since it is February in Seattle so that wood has been rained on for 5 months already.
Lucy's class has been focusing on maps this past month. There has been some really cool learning taking place and she is guiding me around town using directions. We've even drawn a couple. This is Lucy's map of her playground at school. The teachers asked the kids to think about the "big yard" and where everything was located. Then they went outside with clipboards, pens and paper. While all maps included pictures and some even had "paths" from one item to another, Lucy was the only one who divided her paper up into sections and then drew the various playground structures. I find this totally fascinating. The items she chose to draw are also placed in the right order in her sections as if she mentally drew sections in the big yard and then drew the picture in that space. I don't quite know what this says about how she processes information but it seems very efficient to me.

Pretty cool stuff.