Osiyo, Chickadee Families.
We hope you all had a wonderful fall break. It is lovely to have the forest filled with students again. Before the break, we wrapped up our first six weeks with special activities to celebrate the fall equinox and Day of Courage festival. Students separated goldenrod flowers from the stems and saved them in a pot. The flowers were then turned into a beautiful, natural golden dye that they used to make golden capes from flour sack towels. The students also made shooting stars from some of their watercolor paintings and ribbons. The stars were part of our story about George, Cleolinda, and the Dragon, which we shared a puppet show of during the week. The students loved seeing this story of adventure and compassion played out with puppets and props and spent time during the week creating their own puppet shows with blocks, silks, and peg dolls on the platform.
This week we begin a new morning circle, with songs and verses about autumn and apple harvesting. Now that students know what to expect during the morning circle, we will include more challenging movements such as galloping along with reaching above and across the midline of the body. We want to include every language spoken in the students’ homes in our circle songs and verses this year. So far students have sung in Russian, Cherokee, and Spanish. Please let us know if you have a children’s song or verse in a language spoken in your home (or by extended family) that you would like us to share in an upcoming circle. Stories this season will include themes such as gratitude, generosity, or teamwork, and seasonal themes such as apples and harvesting.
Announcements and Reminders:
If you have not yet signed up for conferences, please do so here. It will be lovely to meet with each of you.
As the days get cooler, and mornings can be especially cool, please send your child with a sweater, sweatshirt, or jacket every day. It is around 10 degrees cooler in the shaded forest. Please also include long pants in your child’s backpack if they wear shorts to school.
Please continue to send a vegetable to chop for soup on Mondays and an apple to chop for quinoa and for muffins on Tuesdays.
Upcoming Events:
10/11 - 10/12 Sixth grade caving field trip
10/12 Half Day - Parent Conferences
10/13 No School - Parent Conferences
10/14 Community Work Day 10 am - 1 pm *Please note date change
10/21 Kingdom of Halloween
11/1 NO SCHOOL - Teacher in-service
Thank you for sharing your children with us and for being part of our community.
Gvyalieliga,
Ki Holly
