Bibliotek and a Campfire

The way they do school here, especially the preschool, is so fantastic. Yesterday, the kids in the blue and green groups went to the library for story time. They all walk over to the Centeret together -yesterday naming the numbers of the houses they passed- and go to story time, and then go back to school. Today the red group goes to story time. When we arrived to pick them up from school, it smelled like campfire and there were a plethora of kids jumping in various depths of muddy puddles all over the schoolyard. Anders was on the rope swing -but jumped off right before I could take a picture.

Torben is in the background, picking small plums from the tree. The little boy in blue is up to his thighs in muddy water, playing with another little boy. Torben came running over when he saw us...

"What happened?" "Joey threw a bucket of water in my face." Though he is appearing to look grumpy here, the small turned-up edges of his lips give away that he thought it was quite a fun game.

Later, we learned that, while that had in fact happened, they were having a water fight at the time and he threw water back at Joey as well. This is why they have rain suits! It wasn't actually raining at this time in the afternoon, so only some of the kids were wearing their full rain suits.

We walked over to say farvell to the teachers, and the boys told us all about the campfire they had for snack in the afternoon. I love that a campfire is part of the curriculum at preschool! The whole playground is very out-doorsy and adventurous. You can tell that it's made with kids in mind, and they have plenty of places to explore and be kids. And, they have the coolest pans for cooking pancakes!

I don't know if we can get them back home, but I want a frying pan on a stick to cook delicious breakfast over a campfire! The handles are long enough that the kids can cook the pancakes themselves, too, which is fun. The boys were explaining to me that they dump some of the pancake mix into the pan, and then "turn it like this..." to make the pancake as big as the pan! And then you "chomp, chomp, chomp" and eat it up.

Torben also wanted to show us his tree-climbing abilities while we were there -

This one apparently makes for a great trampoline, as well.

At lunch, we had more of the pineapple-cherries. They are such an interesting package, wrapped in leaves that feel almost like wax-paper,

 and that turn up like orange petals when you open them,

 and then the totally dense fruit intermixed with tiny seeds.

They are an excellent complement to the various cheeses, and are always on the cheese plate rather than the table with the rest of the meal. They are kind of cool looking as well.

Last night, the students were told to be creative with where they chose to sleep...the winner would get a "fat prize" -which, of course, is a half-kilo of margarine. It will be interesting to hear what places they came up with for that assignment. I wonder if they will be glad when theme week is over and they can go back to sleeping in their own beds.