mid-winter journey

White, white, the stillness

Of starlight on the snow.

Green, green, the flowering life

That waits again to grow.

Red, red, the tender heart

That guides the way we go

Under the starlight and over the snow.

-from "Mid-winter Journey", Enki Education Kindergarten Nature Story

This week we read the 3-part nature story "Mid-Winter Journey", about a boy's quest to save a huge evergreen tree. We read it over the course of 3 days, and created a wool board story as our creative digestion activity.

We started by wet-felting green dyed wool batts. We laid the batt in a cookie sheet, put the cookie sheet in the tub, covered with soapy hot water, then agitated the wool until it felted. (The cookie sheet helped it stay together while we were agitating it.)

Then we rinsed out the felt and let it dry. J's felt is on the left, Zoo Boy's on the right. Zoo Boy didn't want to touch the wet wool, so he used the bottom of a cup to agitate the wool. I helped him with it as well, but in the end J's wool felted more evenly due to his extra attention to it.


Then the boys cut the felt into the shape of evergreen trees and arranged them on the wool board.










Our finished wool board picture -- in addition to the evergreen forest (the large tree in the center is the one the boy strove to save), there is the scarlet bird and the bear that the boy stopped to save, and the cabin where the old woodcutter he helped brought him.