The first day of the After School Program and the weather is lovely. We ease into the afternoon with tales of summer. Potluck with families at Ryder Park!
We have outdoor fun raking leaves, building fairy houses, playing tag and role playing. We build structures and cavort in the woods and on the grass, gather on the play structure and teach each other football and soccer techniques. Later we walk around the grounds to find a good place to start a garden as children offer suggestions for plants they’d like to include and the type of birdhouse we’ll need. Milkweed pods are fascinating; discussion begins about the monarch butterflies that need them for food, then about planting seeds and their germination requirements, and we start a compost heap for snack and lunch scraps. “The Victory Garden Kids’ Book,” by Marjorie Waters, and “Gardening with Children,” a Brooklyn Botanic Garden guide, inspire us.
A sensory adventure begins: Children open each of 15 bags to feel, smell and taste dried herb samples from a local garden, then guess what each might be. A key is used to identify each sample, and we talk about what the terms annual, biennial, and perennial mean. Some take samples home, some make perfumes by grinding herbs and adding water. Dolls, fairy houses and button characters are big art activities, and reverse painting on glass in picture frames is intriguing. Enthusiasm for Legos and blocks and animals continues.
We enjoy working with clay, though processing our disappointments–acknowledging regret, promise, hope and validation of their effort–that, since the clay wasn’t wedged it wouldn’t be fired. Our compromise is a photo of each child’s piece, and consensus to deconstruct clay pieces in a pail of water. Outdoors, in games of keep-away, Dr. Evil and other fantasy play, children freely running back and forth across the play-lot and into woods, give the impression of fluttering, floating flocks of birds! They practice with soccer balls, play softball, catch, hand-clap games, build structures, have conversations on the swings, take walks in the woods.
Some learn the safe use of sticks as digging tools, and many blend using natural materials–grasses, dirt, stones, flowers, cross sections of branches–with ropes and the play structure. There are acts of compassion between children, one lending a sweater to a chilly child… Indoors the children explore the magnet table, create fusible bead forms, draw in sketchbooks and work on larger drawings and paintings. We start reading “Voyage of the Poppykettle.” Children are enthusiastic about starting an Engineering & Architecture Club—a topic for everyone to discuss at Morning Meeting. 
The woods are temporarily off limits as we wait for the arborist to take down a dead and leaning tree, so after the rain, we do some puddle engineering. Once we rinse off the mud, we get our hands into the wet clay! The children smack and splat and play with the reconstituted clay from last week, in effect kneading it into a uniform consistency, introducing them to the idea of wedging. 
The woods are open for business! We set tree markers to guard our saplings and visit the fabulous Nevelson assemblage in the woods. More catch and soccer, swinging, adventures on the play structure, red wagon rides (and spills), imaginative role playing and, the favorite, wizarding. We read a portions of “Katie says: The Volcano is a Girl” and “Cheetahs.”