Participation & Inclusion
You cannot please all of the children all of the time. Or at least that is how it seems. Someone will always want to be vocal when it's too wet to climb trees, or when the mud slick is out of bounds, or when we can't go to the pond - or because we are AT the pond! This week we went to the Wildlife Garden, a hedged in, gated area, where we have a good size pond. The children love pond dipping, I cart along a lot of the usual activities, and they get to explore a different small section of woods. This was greeted by most as a happy surprise. Eager children wanted to get straight into pond dipping, and many spent the entire session kneeling by the water. The trees here are young and vying for sunlight. They are tall and skinny and offer a lot of shade, which frankly for the first half of the week was a blessing. It does mean that none are suitable for climbing, a fact that drew groans from a few. I explained we were here for the pond, we had climbable trees last week, and...