rain and fun with tarps

Our first Thursday of rain! Under the forest cover, there was just a light rain, but it gave us a chance to rig up a tarp. We sat underneath it to eat our snack, then listened to this poem: 

Rainsong

Raindrops are singing with clouds,
and when there are too many singers,
they all break away and start to fall.
Now, raindrops are singing on children's tongues,
singing on lakes, on rivers, on oceans,
on roof tops, on cars, on umbrellas,
on tree tops, on plants, on little tiny shoulders,
heads, on every little blade of grass.
Finally, when all of the singers have fallen,
it all dries up. The raindrops go back up
in a secret elevator, and sing with the clouds again.

~ Caitlin D., grade 5, Red Wing, MN (posted here)

We made a rainstorm by snapping, clapping, slapping, and stomping, and it was wonderful to hear the rain dripping on the tarp.

We are all connected in the web of life! We made a web using different connections found in nature: water to fish, fish to worm, worm to soil, soil to tree, tree to sun, and so on and on. We passed yarn across the circle until we had many connections represented. We pretended that the water system was very strong, and whoever had said "water" as part of the web, tugged ever so slightly on their yarn. When others felt a tug, they tugged too. Soon the whole web was tight and healthy. Then we imagined that something was wrong with the water, and the system weakened. The people holding "water" let their yarn weaken a bit, and when others felt the slackness, they let theirs go a bit too. We saw how it affects the whole system - when one thing is affected or weakened.

The Link of Life
The things of nature 
link together 
to make a chain. 
Everything joins 
in links of their own kind.
Then there's the Link
that holds them 
all together,
taking
each little chain
to form One.
Without One
they are nothing,
together 
they are everything,
together 
they form
the Chain of Life.

Lindsay Weber, grade 5, Woodbury, MN (posted here)

Then there was some ingenious tarp-rigging going on - using different knots, and tying rope to roots, trees, and sticks stuck in the ground.

Some side effects of time spent in the forest: rosy cheeks, calm minds, muddy rain pants, and dirty fingernails! :)