Free Friday!

Once a week, we like to give our young adventurers a chance to enjoy themselves outdoors. This unstructured time to explore and play freely helps them to build confidence, to take small risks, and to strengthen friendships with peers - all with two teachers on hand to supervise and step in to guard against any dangerous situations as needed. Children may get a few scrapes or scratches in the course of their adventuring but that is no more harmful than the expected wear and tear that is part of the world of active children. If our hope is for these children to grow up to be stewards of the outdoors, we need to give them a chance to enjoy and build an appreciation for it.

Today's Free Friday time involved lots of Harry Potter play. Sticks make for powerful wands, as long as you have a good spell at the ready, and there were lots of young witches and wizards dueling it out! Our potion masters were gathering dry grass for its magical properties. Other escapades involved rolling down hills and spinning as mini-hurricanes. A few ambitious climbers tried their skills on some low hanging tree branches. Some of our budding geologists attempted to unearth a large stone from the ground. Fans of the Disney Channel's Descendants series took on some role playing with magic of a different nature.  And our "veterinarian's office"was (happily) able to resuscitate some cats who had used up their nine lives!

Good spirited fun was had by all on what will prove to be among the last glorious days of summer.
Enjoy the pictures below!