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Today was a day to be thankful for the sunshine here; there were tornadoes that swept through the southern part of our state, and we took a few minutes to talk about how important it is to keep doing our monthly fire and tornado drills and to send some kind thoughts to those who were affected by the tornadoes.
We began our day with our morning routine, then we headed outside to pick some mulberries. There is a mulberry tree in the back yard, and this year it is covered in berries. The birds eat some and we like to save some for smoothies. If we can save enough, perhaps we'll be able to make some mulberry jam!
We spent about ten minutes picking berries off the tree (which luckily has low branches and is accessible to the children), then brought them inside to wash and rinse.
Our fingers had some bluish berry stains, so we decided that bubble play would be the perfect and entertaining way to wash off the juice. Each child had her own pan and sponge, and together the children gave all the farm animals a bath.
Some children enjoyed making mounds and mounds of foam...
... while others really got into washing the animals and pretending whole animal families were taking baths together.
When the bubbles had all popped and the animals were rinsed with clean water, I worked with the children on badminton. Even the youngest of the children was able to follow my directions about when to bring the racquet up and down, and in that way had some successes in hitting the birdie.
The temperature began to rise, so some of the children took a quick siesta in the shade under the table. I could hear quiet secrets being shared as I brought out the items we'd need to do watercolor painting.
We used the wet-on-wet watercolor technique to set the stage for interesting color mixing. I narrated a brief story about the golden sun and the blue water meeting and playing together as the children used their paintbrushes to gently add yellow and then blue, then we watched what happened. Suddenly, green "land" appeared in the pictures!
We also took note of the color of the rinse water and how that had turned green as well.
While the watercolor paintings dried, the children washed and cleaned up for lunch, and soon they were all napping.
When the awoke, we finished the day by ordering our set of tiny alphabet books and then reading them from A to Z.