There's a lot inspiring work being done by the children in the past few weeks. From geography to botany, from writing first letters, words and songs to washing and juicing, from mopping and multiplying to disecting flowers - the classroom is abuzz with activity these days.
Highlights of the past two weeks:
I can't believe we are already into our last month of school! Where did the time go??
Last week, while Bea and I were spending a busy morning in the kitchen working and cooking, I got a phone call from a reporter of the local newspaper wanting to know if she could interview me about The Natural Child and it's re-launching in Georgetown - in two hours.
"Um, yes, of course!" I declared, a bit surprised and thrilled. Bea and I were not in prime interview mode to say the least. There were dishes to wash, recipes to finish, a house and a yard to tidy up....All those coupled with one of my great fears: public speaking (or maybe, speaking, in general)...
But it was good. Good practice. The reporter, Brianne, and I sat on the front porch while Bea rode her tricycle for a bit and then joined in for a good listen on my lap. We talked about the school and how I plan to continue it in our home and how our home will serve the children in creating an atmosphere that welcomes and invites curiosity and love of learning - all through their hands and senses, of course. I like how Brianne described our home and our lifestyle that we are creating for Beatrix as a "learning laboratory". I guess it is. It does seem like the little girl is forever learning...
Of course, I was nervous about sounding awkward. And of course, Byron reassured me that I did great and that the article was great, and really, there is no such thing as bad press.
Come, children come!! Come, grow, and learn with us!
Friday morning a few of us met up at the Wild Basin Preserve to soak up some fresh spring air and take a guided tour. The children had a great time. While on the hike, we spotted a frog hopping along the trail. That was very exciting to us all! We also found an entact, shedded snakeskin (about 3 feet long), lots of caterpillers, butterflies, wildflowers, and grasses. Oh, we found coyote scat too! Our guide, Sally, says that she has heard them howling in the evening when she is there. Incredible to think about since the preserve is right on the edge of town...
As a parent and a teacher, sometimes oftentimes, it's the little, fleeting, sweet moments that help to carry me through my days.
This week, I have a few I'd like to share:
In other news, we made granola bars (crumble) today. How ever you declare the consistency, the end product was very yummy. Almost too yummy..
Our recipe is inspired by this one. We followed the baking directions, but I changed up a few ingredients. Here is what we used.
Granola bar ingredients:
Also, over the last few months, many of the children were finishing up their lunch, packing away their left-overs and cleaning up their space with ease. In fact, they were asking for more responsibilites and were eager to help out Ms. Molly and I prepare the classroom for the next day. So...now we have a chore board. Every child has a special chore that s/he is responsible for before leaving school for the day. It is working out wonderfully. They love contributing, feeling important, and necessary. I honestly can't say enough about the benefits of real work for the child at this age. Their capacity and willingess to work is always an inspiring and joyful experience to behold!
Our daily chores are:
Does your child have chores at home? If so, what are they?
The Easter Egg hunt was a great success. The children were able to carry their baskets, which were filled with wheat grass that we grew, to the labrynith area of the church grounds. On the way there, we sang Easter and spring songs (it's been such a beautiful season with all the rain and blooms). Here, they searched and searched for all of our hidden Easter eggs. The Easter bunny has a way of knowing just how clever these children are growing up to be, so he hid them extra well...Only a few were unaccounted for by the end of the hunt...
This year we dyed our eggs using blueberries, cranberries, coffee, tumeric powder, spinach, and cinnamon. It's always so much fun to discover just how saturated (or not) the eggs will turn out! We let the eggs soak in the dyes overnight. Some might think children would be impatient and want to see immediate results. That is not really the case at all! They love the whole process of dipping them into the jars, and putting the jars away until the next day. Actually, I think the delayed gratification makes the process all the more alluring! They came to school the next day so excited to see the turnout of our eggs. It's a wonderful experiment to see first hand how plants and foods can be used for dyeing.
Autumn's Arrival
Autumn has come to the country and town.
Wearing its garments of golden and brown.
Apples she brings us so round and so red.
Brings us our corn that we bake our bread.
J. Aulie
These Autumn days...so brief and so magical in Texas. After months and months of heat, it seems we are all enjoying a much needed deep breathe of relief. Autumn, for so many of us, is a nostalgic time of the year. More than any other season, this one conjures so many memories of childhood for me. Perhaps this has to do with the olfactory experience surrounding the season. In the fall, it seems the whole world is saturated with the wonderful aroma of wood burning, spices simering, and apples and pumpkins cooking in some sort of fashion. It is a season that lends itself to so many wonderful cooking ingredients that make their way into our kitchens, our hearts, and our memories.
In fact, I always wonder which moments of childhood get "remembered". Will any of the following moments be remembered?
To welcome Autumn, the children made delicious apple sauce and apple crumble.
We removed Indian corn kernals from the cob and then threaded the kernals into beautiful necklaces.
These sensory experiences are so thoroughly enjoyed by the children. Nearly everyone finds themself engrossed in the process of the work and happy and satisfied by the end product - however it turns out!
The Garden
A few weeks ago, the children cleaned out the playground garden bed, turned the soil, added more soil, shoveled some into our containers, and then finally planted some winter vegetables and marigolds. It was a lot of work and they were incredibly proud of their efforts! Our chard and lettuce is thriving and ready to harvest right now! We are also growing brocolli and cabbage. We enjoy watering the plants and observing their growth and change each day during our outdoor playtime.
Our Halloween Party
I think the children had lots of Halloween fun on the day of our party. There were so many wonderful costumes: Rupunzel, a witch, a shark, a skeleton, Peter Rabbit, Cleopatra, a princess, Dorothy, a mermaid, a butterfly, and a super hero! In the week approaching the party, the children and I had a wonderful time learning a few very fun Halloween songs, carving our pumkin, and decorting our room with paper chains.
Our Autumn days have been filled with so much love for the natural world. We're looking forward to celebrating the rest of the season with more nature crafts and cooking experiences!
Our first month of school is already past us. I usually like to think of September as a settling in month. One in which the main focus is learning how to live peacefully amongst our friends. During this time, we welcome our new friends to the community. For them, there are so many new ways in which they must learn how to go about their mornings.
Since the children have the opportunity to choose their own activities, learning to properly respect materials and friends becomes key to maintaining a peaceful and functional community. In our community, one way in which we go about introducing the parameters to our freedom of choice is through grace and courtesy lessons.
Grace and courtesy lessons are mini skits that the children and adults act out. The skits usually revolve around a classroom guideline that the community needs to pay more attention to. The skits are fun because we get to engage in role play. For instance, a child might get to pretend to be me or another younger child. She may get to "teach" her friends the correct way to do something, thereby empowering her. The skits sometimes get silly and exaggerated and are just plain fun for everyone involved.
The following are some of the lessons we've focused on this month:
If you ask your child about the way we do some of these things at school, I bet they will be specific about the process to which any of these movements or communications occur at The Natural Child. With each guideline and (lesson that accompanies it) there is a logical need for it to maintain a respectful and cooperative community. For instance, we walk around mats because children place their work on their mats. The mat defines their work space, much like tables do. Since we respect each other's work and the materials, our feet should always walk on the floor and around our mats.
Another example that we are always trying to be mindful of is not interrupting someone when they are concentrating on a task or when they are speaking. One way that children are introduced to new activities and materials is by receiving a lesson from an adult. This lesson is very special. It is the moment in which the adult links the child to the material or activity so that the child may fully explore the concepts attached to the material. Part of the adult's work is to model: to model joy, to model concentration, and to model intent of the work. Therefore, through grace and courtesy lessons, the children learn what to do if they need help and their teacher is busy giving a lesson. We learn how to stop and think, to seek help from another child who may be able to assist, or to ask the other available adult for help.
Though these lessons may seem trivial they are indeed life lessons that follow the child to adulthood and beyond. Learning patience, thinking beyond immediate wants and needs, and becoming thoughtful in both actions and words, are daily lessons to mindful living for us all.
We'll continue to have grace and courtesy lessons on a variety of "issues" that arise in our community throughout the year. And between them, we'll be doing a lot of living, a lot of loving, and a lot of learning about each other and the world around us.
Happy Autumn to all of you!
The following photos are off topic but oh so fun to look at. Bread days at The Natural Child are fun days for all!
It feels really wonderful to be back at The Natural Child. I am especially delighted to have so many old friends returning this year. I am always humbled by this precious opportunity I have to nurture little ones while they grow up under my watchful eye. Several of the returning children started out at The Natural Child as toddlers - itty bitty two year olds! Oh my, how I remember their younger versions. So alike in so many ways, but so different in ways we can never really anticipate them to be. My own daughter accompanied me on this journey as a wee infant. For the first two years of The Natural Child, she was the youngest of the group. And now, she blends in with the other children. No longer a babe, but a little girl, eager to help those younger than she.
During these first several weeks as our new children gradually join in with us, our energies will be focused on becoming resettled as a community. We are so busy - getting reacquainted with one another and getting to know each other. It is a true joy to witness the comraderie of our little community already forming. The older children are such wonderful role models to youngest ones. They have so much knowledge that they are eager to share with the little ones. The older children really do play a pivotal role in guiding the younger children to become confident and at ease in their new environment. The younger children look up to these older ones with great admiration, knowing one day soon, they'll be as big and as capable as they are now. Vice versa, the older ones remember all too well what the first time away from home felt like. These two groups "get each other" in a way that an adult cannot fully.
Soon, we will all settle into our new rhythm with our new friends. Similar to the arrival of a baby sibling, our family will quickly forget or cling to the life that was before. Only the present will matter. Our new normal has arrived!
Welcome all to another joyous year at The Natural Child Learning Community.
With gratitude and warmth,
~Nichole
The year ended last Thursday at The Natural Child. It was bittersweet, as always. Older children moving on. Little ones returning - yet teetering quite closely to older child status. Thinking about the future when new children, whom I've known since their own babyhood, join us to share their days and growth with us. I'm constantly reminded through my work with little ones, that this world is not static. Time, moments, life - all are in constant motion, moving forwards ~ away from now.
It's been a wonderful year. I'm so entirely content with the little community that we have created here. But summer is upon us and a new, even slower rhythm, wedges itself upon our days now. For the next few months, the long, hot summer days will be spent savoring moments home with my little one (who just so happens to be growing up ever so quickly). Doing lots of nothing. Being barefoot. Playing in water. Finding shade. Sipping ice water. Tickling ticklish spots. Swings in hammock. Sharing backyard with chickens.
Yet, the endless days of summer will, as they have always done before, inevitably and slowly, come to a close, to give way to a new school year come this September. And already, I'm picturing those future days and smiling...For now, I've got some summery slowness to enjoy.
You'll find me back in this space in September.
Ah, but wait...I just had to include this before signing off. There we were. All together. 2010-2011.
