Dear Forest families,
Happy May! What a wonderful week of warm weather and much needed rain! We celebrated May first with a few forgotten traditions.
May day baskets – A tradition celebrated in the 19th and 20th centuries, people rang in the first of May with a particularly charming and elegant tradition. They would take all the flowers they had gathered at the end of April’s showers, arrange them in pretty paper along with gifts and candies, and then hang them on the doors of friends and neighbors as a way of welcoming them into warmer weather.
The forest children made lovely baskets out of paper plates, markers and beautiful fresh picked dandelions from our spring walk!
Maypole dance– Maypole dancing is a form of folk dance from Germany, England and Sweden. Traditionally there are two forms. The first and most popular consists of dancers that perform circle dance around a tall garland-festooned pole. In the second, dancers move in a circle, each holding a colored ribbon attached to a much small pole. As they move around the pole, the dancers intertwine their ribbons either in a web around the pole or plait it to the pole. To unravel the ribbons the dancers retrace their steps. And now a third practiced by the Forest students consisted of laughs and tangled children!
This week’s focus was birds. We read great books and had discussions on the:
- Life cycle of a robin
- Rocky Mountain Birds
- Birds of prey
We played a fun game called Jays vs Juncos. In this game most of the students acted as Junco’s foraging food discreetly bringing it back go their nest to feed their young. Their objective was to hide it from the pesky Blue Jays, who were ransacking all of the nests they could find for their own needs.
A peek into next week: Measurement and Cooking
Dates to remember-
- May 10th – Muffins with Mom – 7:30-9:30
- May 17th – All School End-of-Year Picnic at Waneka Lake park. 5:00 – 7:30 pm
Please sign up for a dish to bring at the front desk.
Have a great weekend!
Ms. Melissa, Ms. Jess and Ms. Fraya
