out in nature

On Friday I took my class on our monthly fieldtrip out to Alpine Pond Open Space Preserve. The park is up in the mountains. We take a windy road up and stop in between to marvel at the view of the valley. As we say good bye to the city we say hello to nature. Each month is an adventure.

This time we split into two groups and with identification charts in hand we took it upon ourselves to notice and identify plants and birds.

Here is a letter I wrote to the parents after our trip:

Dear Parents,

We had the most gorgeous weather up at Alpine Pond Open Space Preserve today. The students (turned scientists) walked into the park with their identification charts in hand determined to find flowers and birds.

So far we identified the following plants:

California Buttercup

Thistle

Scarlet pimpernel

Wild Strawberry and

one flower in the pea family.

Birds we could identify were:

Song Sparrow

Varied Thrush

Scrub Jay

Plain Titmouse

Barn Swallow

And we recorded our observations and will use them to identify other plants and birds.

Enjoy this weekend.

Stepping outside, making the outside the classroom, taking a closer look at the things right in front of you, and yet being in this big space called nature, is not only refreshing, but necessary in remaining balance and perspective.

recital

It was lovely. Chairs were set up, cookies and treats put out on white table cloth covered table, christmas lights were lit, girls in beautiful dresses came, people smiled and listened to the accomplishments of their young musicians.

my young students and me

I got to play too with Theodore

I gave each student a new piece of music with a chocolate snowman and a home made snowflake

Again, it was wonderful. Everyone loved and people stayed and talked and simply enjoyed the afternoon.

relaxing afterwards

Of course looking back at the pictures (thank you, Erica!) it brought back memories of the many recitals my flute teacher put together. I wish she could have been here with us. I appreciated her for setting an example for me to follow on how to teach and make these events inspiring for her students and fun for the audience to attend.

Congratulations, Chloe, Kelsey, Mariah, and Isabella!!!!

winter wonderland

Celebrating the letter Ww has been fun in our classroom. With paper snowflakes and pastel drawings with cotton balls we transformed our classroom into a winter wonderland.

We also prepared holiday presents for our families. We each decorated a plate. The children painted a holiday picture and in it we wrapped the plate. We tied them up with a tag and yesterday we made candles too. I fell in love with the bees wax candle set from Magic cabin. Each child rolled and then decorated a candle. They LOVED it. They all wanted to make more and more.

Their presents will go home tomorrow and you can probably imagine how excited my little pokey little puppies are. ;)

Today is our last day and we now have three weeks of vacation!

playground knitting

Before the school year began, I read an article (part of this series) on playground supervision. This teacher found that if she had something to work on, rather than simply "patrol" across the playground children were more likely to engage in their play and came less often complaining about one thing or another.

I was inspired and while I didn't want to carve as a spoon, like the author of the article had done, I wanted do have a project that is meaningful to me and is something I love to do.

After some thought, I decided to stick with something I was already familiar, such as knitting. Not wanting to carry a big piece around with me, I decided to knit little squares and later sew them together into a quilt. But, psst, nobody on the playground knows this yet. The outcome of this project is not unveiled.

When children ask me what I am doing, as I let them wonder about it. I might look at it, and ask them, what it could be? What could it be that I am knitting? I leave them with the wondering, saying things like "We will just have to see, what it is going to be!"

Usually the child will smile and run off. Sometimes a child will continue to watch me and after a while say, "Oh, I know it is going to be a scarf for tiny babies".

While I believe our school already fosters children to feel safe and responsible on the playground, my mysterious knitting helps me to focus on something constructive and keep the energy happy and engaged. I feel good when I knit, the activity relaxes me and brings me enjoyment. If I can practice happiness and enjoy myself, I have accomplished a major task as a teacher, modeling what I would like them to learn.

Just alone for that purpose, I am glad to have taken on this project.

I hope to show you the end result by the end of this school year. But honestly, it is the process that I am fascinated with right now!

happy spiders in their web art project

"happy spiders in their webs"

On the Friday before Halloween I embarked on this multi process art project with my class.

I have done water color over crayon painting with them before. Every time they love the magic when the water color does not stick on the crayon drawing.

This time we used oil pastels and water color on top. To create the twinkling stars effect children wanted to add some sparkling paint as well. After the paintings dried I painted their hands and helped them make their hand print spiders. Gluing on the google eyes was an extra thrill!

Our happy spiders in their web are still decorating our classroom.

Original project found here.

fall windows

Last weekend I wanted to do something at home to welcome the fall season. To invite fall into our house.

Sophia and her dear friends from next door were ready to do this little project with me.

They grated and sharpened crayons on wax paper.

I then added another sheet of wax paper and ironed everything, for the crayons to melt.

I printed out a leaf coloring page and traced it onto the melted crayon paper. The girls then set out to cut them all out.

Together they are now twirling through the air.

A fitting poem the children at school are learning right now:

Little leaves fall gently down

Yellow and Orange, Red and Brown;

Twirling, twirling round and round,

Quietly without a sound

softly falling to the ground

down and down and down and down.

We move our hands and arms, twirl and end all together on the floor in child's pose.

our classroom

Yesterday marked the first day of our 2010/2011 school year. The first day is a vibrant one with anticipation and excitement just buzzing about.

Before I get swept away by the growth and changes that are bound to happen again this year I wanted to savor the moment and take a peak into the classroom and share some pictures with you.

Our "celebrating letters" board. I color photocopied some of my favorite books and placed them around an alphabet poster.

Our "discovering math and science" board. I used some old doilies that I had to create a cooling, imaginative effect.

Plants will be a big part of our year, as we learn how to take responsibility for them, watering and caring for them. Lots of room for interesting conversations!

With colorful chalk I wrote our class name on the board.
I love this rocker. Mr. Igel is a puppet and reads stories and leads conversations in our classroom. Sometimes he even hands out a little treat (an almond, or raisin). The pillow I received from my sister and I am thrilled to have it (it matches perfectly with the colors in the room).
This little easel I bought at Ikea and it helped me welcome each student and will let me record their sharing and write down our daily newspaper (more on that another time).

Some words in the entrance to set the atmosphere.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour.

sweetness for the morning

It is time to go back to work. In the next couple of weeks I will be getting the classroom ready, organizing materials, thinking about all the fun and educational projects I want to create with the children, and most of all setting the energy for another school year. It is always a new year with new energy coming in. The energy I bring into the classroom in the next couple of weeks is like sowing the seedling for the year tree. I love to sing while I work and look for inspirational quotes to frame for the room.

Last year I was inspired by this quote:

Love is a choice you make from moment to moment.

by Barbara de Angelis

It is a precious time, thinking of all the little people who will come to the classroom. To make the transition still a little sweeter I began a ritual of making sweetened fruit tea. The children love it too. I drink it with the children, and we have some around for the rest of the day.

I usually use Trader Joe's organic raspberry tea, brew it in a nice big pot, add a helping of honey and it is ready to drink, almost like juice. A little delicious sweetness for your morning.

the paper princess

In camp we read the story "The Paper Princess" by Eliza Kleven.

One year the school actually had the wonderful oportunity to meet Eliza in person. The visit was an inspiration as we watched and listened to her going about her artistic illustrations.

In camp, the children set out to make their own paper princesses. Each child then contintued to create a surrounding, or stage for their paper princess (or prince/king/ knight etc.). Imagination, creativity and the development of the writer and artist are fascinating process and with the right amount of balance of freedom and structure thoughtful, delightful, and beautiful pieces are the result.

Today was the last day of camp and Sophia brought hers home. She really worked hard on her creation and expanded her ideas of what to include and what else the paper princess needed.

The beauty of this project of course is also that it doesn't stop with the making of the box, but leads to hours of amusement.

flowers for my classroom

Hurray, Summer is here and my classroom got a face lift or flower decoration. I have been thinking about how make the entry the "face" of our school more inviting, welcoming and cheerful.

I bought these sturdy and wonderful looking wooden picnic benches for the children to eat their snack and lunch at. They already brightened the sight with their happy looking bright blue umbrellas.

During camp we painted flowers on the doors. That certainly added a very cheerful and warm touch.

We also made a garland, or more like a prayer flag that I will show in another post.

My next idea is to have a black board facing the drive way on which we can write morning messages, welcomes, reminders, inspirational words, mathematical problems, poems etc. to help build our school community. Will let you know if and how that comes together.

Oh, it always makes me happy to make a place more beautiful!

end of the year celebration

I love the cycles of teaching. Every year the year starts over with already familiar and also new faces. The year is intense, exhausting, joyful, inspiring, and everything in between. But then the end of the year comes and everything just seems to have come full circle.

Our school has the tradition for each student to receive a quality that he/she has practiced or demonstrated over the course of the year. All the teachers meet and together we choose the quality for each student. Courage, Awareness, Kindness, Friendship, Curiosity...

Each student reflects, researches and thinks about his/her quality and writes a speech. The progression that we see in the speeches from Kindergarten to 8th grade is amazing. They usually start with a couple sentence speeches like "I practice kindness when I play with my friends. I had a great year". By the time the child reaches Middle school there are longer, throughly thought out speeches.

At the end of the year celebration all the families come together to celebrate and each student comes up on stage to receive their quality and say their speech.

Sophia received the quality of "good energy" this year. Here she is giving her speech.

"To me good energy means choosing to be nice. I was given the quality good energy because sometimes I do not feel happy but choose to create good energy in myself."

Congratulations, Sophia and all Living Wisdom School Stars!

imagination sheet

(from this....)

At school we sometimes draw a line, make a scribble, pencil a shape and the children get to decide what is going to happen with it. The line, shape or scribble gets incoorporated into the picture.

(.... to this!)

Sophia and I (Mateo did join in as well) made our imagination sheets last night. We were working together at their little table. I was touched the way she kept looking over to see what I was creating. She admires her mama and I love her more than I know was possible and she brings more joy to me than I could have imagined.