Nettle Harvest Skills Day 9-25-16

So, we started our day with some nature magic. Like we do. But not ordinary magic, mind you, but the "amazing oh my goodness I can't believe I'm seeing this" kind of magical nature moment. Gathered in our morning circle after a quick game, we sat down in the center of the labyrinth in Fairhaven Park to welcome a new girl and talk about our day ahead. We were in the midst of our check-in when we were interrupted by a loud ruckus coming from a flock of crows in the copse of nearby fir trees. One of our mentors wondered out loud what was happening since the crows sounded so upset, explaining that amount of ruckus can be a signal that something is amiss in the bird world. Crows sound off to warn others of intruders, like hawks or owls. We shared that there is a long history of crows and owls engaging in eating each other's babies, so there's a lot of animosity between those two species. And that's when a Barred Owl flew out of the fir trees and landed just behind us, in plain view! Like it was in the queue! We about all fell over!

The crows flew over in their murder to surround the owl and give it a hard time. The owl put up with them for about three minutes, and then flew off. We couldn't have planned it better. Wonder-full way to start our day!

In Coyote mentoring, we mentors strive to lead from behind, fostering leadership skills by asking pertinent questions or just getting out of the way as the group makes decisions about their day's exploration. We do this by giving the explorers the opportunity to decide upon their own plan for the day that incorporates the focus for our outing. Out focused learning today was: Be Safe and Harvest nettle. Girls were in charge of deciding how our day unfolded, so games showed up BIG for the Sea Stars.

Some of the great assets the Sea Stars embrace is their ability to play and Widen Their Circle by including new friends. They love games! The awesome power of games to practice our socio-emotional skills is HUGE, and it leads to great connections between the girls as they collaborate and compromise for the greater good of the group. That's a big challenge for fourth graders. And all the rest of us, too. We played Birds and Worms (ask your explorer about the pipe cleaner game, which happens to be a useful too for teaching about the concept of adaptations for survival. Were they an American Robin, a flicker or a Stellars Jay? and several types of tag. Since these girls are so adept at playing together, we gave them a new challenge, at a moment when they couldn't decide what game to play. Their challenge was to make their own game up, incorporating nettles and life cycles. Mentors and educators do this all the time, as a way to practice skills and experience learning in a deep multi-sensory way. And of course, the Sea Stars had their game theory hashed out in about fifteen minutes. We have some strong speakers in this group and we will continue to work on taking care of each other and making sure ALL voices are heard, as all opinions are valid. Theory is not the same as practice, so we had to play a round and see how it worked out. The girls had a great time playing our nettle game that brought in familiar aspects of other favorite games.

We settled down to ear our lunch, and move on through our plan.

Harvesting nettles for cordage!

It was time to crack into our nettle skills, and the girls worked in earnest to harvest, prepare and strip the nettles into string. In harvesting, we remembered the one in twenty principle, where we will take only what we need and what is sustainable for the specific harvesting habitat. Many girls enjoyed (purposeful) nettle stings while removing the leaves from the stalks. We quickly got into a work-flow, and the girls seemed shocked when we ran out of nettles and needed to clean up! We acknowledged those who came before us to use nettles and cordage for a wide variety of purposes, who learned to harness the wild nettle for us to be using today.

We wound down our day with some time spent walking, crawling, skipping, and dancing through the beautiful Fairhaven Labyrinth, before settling down for a sunshiney Peaceful Place. We shared our Attitude of Gratitude at the end of the day, and relished our day full of connection, appreciation, and focus.

To see a slideshow of our day, click here!