little illuminations: Baby Hawks

A lot of what I generally post here are the planned activities that we do. Those activities are just a small part of our day. The children have quite a bit of unstructured free time to pretend, explore, create and play. I love to watch as some of these play scenarios unfold. Sometimes they're funny, sometimes enlightening, but usually entertaining, and often mesmerizing and, as in this scenario, simply beautiful. My friends concocted a scenario of being mother hawks teaching their little hawks to fly.

They used a little depression in the ground formed by our storm water erosion as their nest. Mama Hawk told the babies to "get down and stay down" so they don't get eaten. When I asked who was going to eat them, my friend, Hannah replied, "Um, the predators, of course!"

Watching the kids "fly" around the playground, wings outstretched, wind in their "feathers", I was taken by this moment of purity of imagination. If just for the moment, they were completely free!