“Is today an upside down day?”

“Is it a journey day?”

These questions are posed by the four and five year olds ask as they walk into the play yard, pausing to hang up their backpacks along the way. They ask this question because they have been planning their day since they woke up. Now it is noon and they want to get on with their school day.

Upside down usually means that we will be leaving — it will be a “journey day.” If the answer is yes to either of these questions, the next one will be, “Are we traveling light?” The answer to that question will determine if we will eat “out on the road” or at school.

Wonder walking toe to toe with sequenced thinking!

Consider all these if/then questions and considerations! There is a lot to be learned, of course, since these seemingly small decision points build thinking and imagining connected to math and literacy. Leading our efforts, though, never do anything that cannot be connected back to sense of self and sense of place. This guide us all.

There is a lot to be determined and growth abounds. Autonomy, agency, along with just keeping track of your stuff — all things we hope children will have full possession of when they leave us for kindergarten is put into practice every single day.

On this particular day, actually on almost all the days, the adults answer, “I don’t know,” or we answer with a question, “Is Journey up?”

“Journey” is the name of one of our wool dolls. We place her in the transition display only when we, the adults, are certain that the day will be a journey day. For instance, on Wednesday mornings for the threes and fours and Friday afternoon for the fours and fives.

Often there are, We must journey kind of days” — so up she goes. For instance, if the wind is up we journey to open space (no trees). Or when it snowed last week and there was a stretch of below freezing days, we MUST go to one of the creeks to check for ice. The children every year hear about that one time the creek froze solid and the children — and even a mom(!) — walked right up to Dragon Tooth Rock and tapped its side, knock, knock, who is there! They all want to see such a wonder and this might be the year!

Because the parkway we have to cross wasn’t closed to car traffic, we journeyed to the other smaller creek. At first, it looked like any ice wasn’t going to be an option, but before long, wonder upon wonder, there it was . . . along the edges, collected on broken sticks and drooping leaves, and over stones.

Why does a learning environment, a school, have to trap children within four walls?

Why would we (adults) craft exploration and learning in terms of “always” instead of happenstance? By this I mean, we could create frozen sensations in the school’s freezer so that the children would have free and constant access, but that would never truly capture the wonder of finding ice suddenly or, yes even better, not finding it at all.