Playing With Nature

So you've noticed all my nature-centric posts lately?  Like nature itself, this wasn't a premeditated theme I had set out to write about.  My only hope was to create a small nature table in the house and then the school year began and I saw the Outdoor Classroom.  And then BB came home interested in Arcimboldo. And we just happened to have a camping trip for him planned. So lots of communing with nature that has become a theme here but it was an organic process.

While at the playground a few weeks ago, BB foraged through the greens to find interesting plants and used this piece of play equipment as a vase.  A lovely arrangement, don't you think? He also built a nest of leaves for a worm he found in the dirt.

Over the weekend we played in a small rock garden at a teahouse in our neighborhood and he, with the assistance of his apprentice, created this "Rock Castle."  BB says he built it for "The Monkey King," an icon in classical Chinese literature. I find out later that his Chinese teacher at Montessori school has been reading them the epic tales of The Monkey King.