With fresh sand in our sandbox, fresh dirt in our mud kitchen, and a couple of new tricycles, we were back in business for the second year of Appleseeds! The children warmed right up to being back in school. Compared to last year's start, there has been more action from the very beginning this year! The children are now strong enough to move around the big blocks with ease, so they built large trucks, houses, or even just piled them in the wagon to haul around. The mud kitchen was utilized right away to produce cupcakes, pies, or just some mud for trucks to move around. The garden has been getting a thorough watering each morning, and children love picking the red tomatoes.
We have been continuing with a bit of our summer rhythm by starting outside while it's still cool. After a good morning playtime, we clean up our toys, and join together for our circle time. I am using the full circle that I had prepared last year, but the fun part is that we can do the WHOLE circle together. Last year, we only did one short part, because that was about all that the children could handle. But now they are eager and excited to do the whole thing. Our circle includes a farmer who gets on his horse and gallops away, but then look! Our horse is limping! What shall we do? We take him to the blacksmith who makes a shoe for him, and the children love singing and acting out "I am the blacksmith good and true, best of work I always do. All day long my hammer goes, ringing, ringing, ringing so, with Rickerty-tickerdy, tickerdy, tick..." Once the blacksmith has made a shoe, we put it on the horse. For this, the children practice touching opposite hands and feet as they say "Pitter, patter, polt, shoe my little colt. Here's a nail, and here's a nail, pitter, patter polt" Fresh horseshoes on, our horse can gallop again and off we go into the orchard to pick apples and make applesauce.
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