The Forest School

Classwork

We joined the Forest School in Prospect Park this session, and are so tickled by it. It is just so dang sweet.

An average class is like this: We all walk to the "classroom" together, quietly (hard for me, yes), and then stop to sing a song about a lark who says "cookoo". After we arrive, we play in the mud with sticks, little shovels, pails and cups of water. A hand washing song is sung, and the kids line up to swish their hands in a shiny metal bowl filled with warm water.

Snack time is awesome: There is an earthenware plate covered first with a little red checkered towel and then with crispy and sweet sliced apples. They pass around cool hibiscus tea in tiny white ceramic sake cups, and homemade bread with either butter or apple butter. Isaac always pauses as if making a great decision, and then announces, "apple butter!"

After snack we do a bit more exploring. Today we went fishing with sticks at the dog beach. We caught some dogs! There was an especially big and nice one named Lily.

We finish with a circle time full of sweet songs about nature and bugs, say bye-bye, and then play with "kites", or little bits of silk tied to sticks.

The thing that makes all this so wonderful is how incredibly gentle it is. All of the kids classes I have been to with Isaac up until this one have been really loud! This is really quiet. The singing is quiet, and the games are quiet. The exploring leaves them space to discover without rules. It's quiet enough that I notice myself, or catch myself wanting to tell Isaac to do something, and then realize he's very capable of figuring it out on his own.

Thank you Forest School!

Goin' For a Horsey Ride

We've been biking with Isaac to the Brooklyn Bridge Park lately. We lie about on the grass, look at the water and boats, and go on the super snazzy, glass enclosed Carousel.

He loves it all very much. He doesn't mind when we put on his dinosaur helmet to go bumpity bump on over there. He patiently and expectantly waits for the organ music to start and the horses to go up and down, and around and around.

So far the only thing he's gotten grumpy about is having to get off, so we can wait in line and go just one more time.

Brooklyn Art Museum Proves Delightful for Toddling

I am so small, and these mushrooms are so big!

Isaac began his first ever trip to a museum in a room of enormous puffy white mushrooms. He gave the bottoms of the mushrooms big happy slaps and fell in love with a museum guard named Enza.

Enza and Isaac danced together, oohed and ah-ed at one another, did a bit of walking, and then finally sat down. Enza felt so worked out by the little guy, she had to take off her museum coat!

Enza is on the right

Omi, Isaac, and I said goodbye to Enza, who cried "Oh! You must come again!" (She has 11 year old twin grandsons and misses their babyness.) We walked to the tall and shiny elevator doors, waited for them to open, and were soon flying through space, up up up, to the 3rd floor.

We were greeted by an especially entrancing Rodin sculpture. Isaac wanted to touch the bumpy nakedness and it drove him nuts that he wasn't allowed. I understood because I wanted to touch it too.  We commiserated, and finally toddled on to appreciate portraits of smirking, staring, stately folks dressed in fine robes.

We finished with a visit to the Egypt exhibit and their mummies (very different from our mommies, we explained), an examination of a floor light socket and a shared sandwich in the windowless, hot green chaired museum cafe. We did it!  First ever trip to a museum was successful!

We huddled out into the cold rainyness and then home for a warm supper and bed.