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students had gone home, and the heat cooled down a little. It was
one of the hotter days in June so far.
This was our newest one's first time going here, so all the other
children were happy to show him the ropes.
They had a great time exploring together. This is such a fantastic
playground that was built through the community KABOOM playground
project, sponsored by the Home Depot. Although I could not
personally volunteer to go onsite to help build it, I am happy to
have been able to help out in my own ability by providing free child
care for the volunteers who were building the playground. This was
due to the build taking place on my slower days when I didn't have as
many children to take care of. I was glad to be part of this project
and see what a difference it makes for the children to have another
playground to play at. Before it had been built, all the children in
the neighbourhood had only one park to play at, plus the small little
playground at the other school down the street when school was out.
For how many children there are in this area, it got quite crowded.
Now there is plenty for everyone.
I've just heard this morning from a neighbour passing by that there
is also another park being built just up the street, and completion
should be done in or around the next month. How exciting is that!
It's a little longer of a walk than we might venture on a hot day,
but if we go early in the morning with some freezies packed in our
cooler bag, it would be fine. I think it would also be great for the
spring or fall to walk to, and we'd get to see plenty of nature on
the way as we would cross the pond to get there.
The other thing we did today, was go down to the pond behind Peach
Blossom (via the pathway) to investigate tiny bugs by the pond. The
children had such good listening ears on!
I'm sorry to say that I did not have our camera for this nature
walk. It would have been fun to show you all the very tiny bugs we
found just at the water's edge. The children and I sat on the edge
of the grass, and I took their hands one at a time to make shadows
over the water. When our hand shadow moved along the water, all of
the camouflaged water bugs began to stir and swim away. It was an
intriguing discovery! Then we stared at a patch of mud that looked
like nothing was happening. When we were quiet, and sat patiently,
little things began to happen... something that looked like just a
pebble began to move! You could just barely see it's legs! Then we
watched some more, and saw what looked like the tiniest speck of dirt
began to move across the mud! This time we could not see any legs,
just a little dot moving! It was amazing to see just how much life
there really was in one square foot of land that appeared to not be
of much consequence.
On the way home, we played eye spy with different colours of
flowers, and were interested to spot out some grass that had grown
even taller than Jennie!
