Happy Fall Equinox
This past week at Forest Nursery School we've been chatting about coming change in seasons and the Fall Equinox. We talked about how there was one day left in summer, how the leaves are changing colours and the air is getting cooler, and how soon, the days and nights will be the same as it gets darker and darker. In the morning group, they celebrated Equinox with sun dyes and explorations of balance. Balance can be seen using a scale filled with marigolds, using words like more and less, heavier and lighter, full and empty, or in the middle. In the afternoon group, we celebrated this year with Autumn dyes and feasting together. We notice how this is a season where everything around us, including the beavers, squirrels and other animals, are harvesting our final foods to store before winter.
At Forest Nursery School, we have an ongoing curriculum practice of bringing our attention to the changing seasons. This supports children to develop environmental awareness of their surroundings, but also builds practical skills around harvesting, dressing for the weather, and attention. It is also part of our practice of learning from and with the land, which Indigenous Peoples have been doing in this place since time immemorial. As we are all Treaty people, we hope to honour and encourage children's relationship with the land.
The afternoon group collected ingredients from our garden and read Strega Nona's Harvest by Tomie dePaola. The morning class gathered marigolds to use in their sun dye and read Apple by Nikki McClure. On Tuesday, the morning class put the marigolds in a glass jar with water and embroidery floss and gave it a stir. It will sit in a sunny spot for awhile - we can't wait to see what sunny colour they'll end up with! We can use this embroidery floss in the winter to harness a bit of sunshine to see us through the darkest days.
Using natural ink from some amaranth (deep red) that a gardener had gifted us and turmeric (yellow), the afternoon group used some compost vegetables for stamping different shapes. Mother Earth (Aki) offers us so many amazing gifts this time of year!
Later, the ink is used in our mud kitchen and becomes dragon blood, hawk blood among other things. Eventually, the mud kitchen turns into a shop and we all get to try dragon blood soup, strawberry drink and other mysterious creations. With limited ink left, the children must be creative in how to share with each other. They talk about who has the most, and who has the least. They mix some water into the dye while trying to retain the bright colour. It demonstrates early skill development in areas such as science, problem solving and cooperation!
The children helped us prep vegetables for our Fall Equinox feast the next day. We washed carrots from the garden, took out the seeds from the pumpkin and pressed garlic. All of the children were eager to try all of these steps to get us closer to a delicious pumpkin curry!
After lots of food prep on Tuesday, the ingredients went back to our kitchen to make pumpkin curry for Wednesday. We brought rice to add to the mix. The children also asked we roast the pumpkin seeds - and they were right, everyone loved them! We read the book Before We Eat by Pat Brisson as we talked about our ingredients in the curry and the process of making it together. While eating, we also read Stone Soup by Ann McGovern. Nearly all of the children ate the curry and asked for seconds! The recipe (adapted) is included below. Feasting together helps us mark and celebrate this change in seasons.
In a month or so we'll start to notice the tilt towards darker days and can call back to these celebrations: remember when the light and dark were equal and balanced for that one day? Remember when the garden was so full of gifts, flavours and colours?
Indian Pumpkin Curry Recipe
1 small pumpkin, cut into cubes
1 cup yellow split peas (or you can use chickpeas)
1/4 large onion, finely chopped
1 small yellow pepper, finely chopped
1 large carrot, finely chopped (we used a few small ones)
1 can of tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped kale
1 inch grated ginger
1 tbsp garlic paste (2-4 cloves chopped or pressed)
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 tbsp coconut sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 can of coconut milk
oil
- cook yellow peas in instapot with vegetable broth & bay leaf, remove and set aside to add back in later
- soften all vegetables except kale & pumpkin with oil in instapot sautee setting (~5 min)
- add garlic, ginger, spices and a splash of water to keep from sticking
- add pumpkin, sugar, tomatoes and 1/2 cup of water
- set instapot to cook for 5 minutes, quick release when finished
- add lemon juice, coconut milk, kale & cooked split peas
Recipe adapted from:
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