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At last! The freezing winter weather is beginning to make way for the warm breezes of spring, so we spent as much time outside on this lovely day as we could.
We changed over our calendar from February to March, counting the days as we took them out and put them back in. We talked a little about St. Patrick's Day and some of the activities we'll be working on through the month. March is the month where gardeners young and old feel that there is hope and gardens must be started, so this month we'll be doing lots of gardening-related activities like re-growing green onions, carrots, celery, and sweet potatoes and investigating how plants take in water. Later in the month, we'll be exploring wind power since March has that infamous "in like a lion, out like a lamb" reputation. It's hard to believe we'll be flying kites by the end of the month!
After our morning routine, we got dressed to go out. It's so incredible to watch some of the big kids get dressed with minimal assistance- I remember when they were so tiny... and now they're so independent! Once everyone was dressed, we went right outside and brought some measuring cups along to scoop and measure the snow since it was at a nice, packable temperature.
We scooped and packed all four sizes of cups and ordered the snow scoops from biggest to smallest. The children thought that the scoops looked like ice cream, so the play naturally flowed into pretending they were servers in an ice cream shop. It was so tempting to eat the snow, so we talked about how it was fun to pretend to eat the snow, actually eating it was probably not the best idea.
The kids listened to the new spring songs of some of the sparrrows and chickadees who were watching us- their songs change along with the seasons. We spent time crawling up and over the walls of the fortresses we had built during the last big snowfall.
The children had a blast making snowballs and tossing them in the air. We looked around the yard at the swelling buds on the trees and bushes and at all the little squirrel and bird prints left in the snow.
It was clear that they children were overjoyed to be back outside after being cooped up inside for such a long time, and the outdoor play was theraputic.
All too soon it was time to come inside and eat lunch. Needless to say, all the snow play made for some hearty appetites and some very restful naps.
In the afternoon we enoyed reading the March poem from John Updike's A Children's Calendar (which has gorgeous illustrations by Tina Schart Hyman), the March section of The Year at Maple Hill Farm by Alice and Martin Provensen, and several nursery rhymes.
See you tomorrow!