At the Helm

On Friday we opened the woods for free play — one of the most anticipated days of the year. We spend the previous four weeks discussing how to include younger students in our play, how to solve conflicts, and, generally, how to be the kind of "big kids" that the younger students will emulate and look up to.

We've had many discussions about the woods and how to make play there more equitable and inclusive. Many of the Herons are interested in re-writing our school's "You can't say you can't play rule." They believe (I think correctly) that if a student has to invoke the rule, the damage is already done. While no one can physically keep you from being in a fort, that doesn't mean you're welcomed with open arms. One child suggested "You should say you can play." And, while the wording hasn't been agreed upon, the other students definitely seemed to want to make the rule a more powerful and meaningful statement about how kids treat each other at Prairie Creek.

There were also a lot of discussions about the fairness of stick distribution in the woods. So before recess on Friday, all of the 4/5s went into the woods to help add to the stock of building materials. Students who work on established forts decided together what they felt they needed and what they felt they could share. Other students went to the little patch of Prairie Creek woods across the creek to gather sticks and bring them back to the fort woods. Students this year really had a sense of wanting to make the woods a better place to play.

Nancy, Molly and Amy did a wonderful all school gathering where they modeled potential conflicts and how to handle them. Having concrete examples and language can be really helpful as children try to negotiate the wide open world of woods play. And then a new year in the woods began with its corncobs and perfume businesses and civic centers and banks and totem making and worm hunting and clay mining and weed whacking and fairy house building and gardening and ditch digging and owl pellet finding and fungus foraging and insulation gathering and friend making.

I've included a video of our woods play and preparation for it. I've also included a video of reading buddies. I hope you'll agree with me that the murmur of children reading together in a sunlit room is one of the most wonderful sounds in the world. mm