The past two weeks have been centered around preparing for our first celebration of the year, our Apple Harvest Celebration. The children used our apple peeler and corer to spin apples into spirals, then chop them to put into our pot to cook for apple sauce. After cooking the apples until they were soft, the children helped mill them with our hand cranked food mill. After our delicious cider pressing last weekend, we had lots of apple mash left over and so we have been milling and milling it into apple sauce. On Thursday, we were able to enjoy some warm applesauce with our homemade bread for snack. Many more jars of the sauce is in the freezer, waiting to be served throughout the year.
The construction behind our playground has been quite loud, but it has inspired the children in their play, as well as being exciting to watch. It has provided an interesting backdrop to our mornings outdoors. Lately, some of the themes that the children have been playing with is fort making under the picnic table or the climbing dome, Paw Patrol rescue pets, and also some individual and duet performances on a stage the children built with the blocks. Many times in the last week the whole group of kids has played together on a shared theme one of them thought up, then they would drift into smaller groups and then drift back again into a whole group. It is exciting to watch them as they think up new ideas, try them out with friends, think of something new, rest, then come back to an earlier game. This is what I want to protect in the children; this ability and time to let play unfold without too much input and shaping by adults. Working together and also finding time alone, these moments are crucial to the brain development and social development of the child. This is the brain at play, which will be needed later in life to solve more abstract problems.
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