Joyful Beginnings: March 29 - April 2

Guess who hops wherever he goes?

Wiggle, wiggle, goes his nose,

His ears are pink, his tail is funny,

Can you guess, it’s a _______?

This week has brought us a kaleidoscope of the weather. We had heavy showers, cold mornings, and warm afternoons. Thank you to all the parents for making sure to dress your child in layers so they can easily adjust to all these weather conditions.

The theme of the week all about bunnies! We were getting into full swing preparing for the fun of the weekend and the week ahead too. Try the riddle at the start of this letter with your child/ren at home. We also shared a new song about a bunny and a story about a bunny who was eating a farmer’s garden vegetables called “Bunny and a Garden”. The story and song will be added to our Google Classroom during our Spring Break.

On Monday, we went on our regular visit to an animal farm. On our way, we found a large pile of mulch. Of course, we stopped to play there - climbing, rearranging, and running around this pile. We were lucky to find it when we did as on our next visit, the pile was gone! We also fed our donkeys and our new goats. The goats are getting more accustomed to us each visit. They are not shying away from the students. Some of the class even managed to catch our chickens and hold them in their lap. That is always a fun activity!

On Wednesday, we had an unusual day as we spent a full day indoors. The rain was coming down so fast that we didn’t find a moment to poke our noses outside. We played old favorites like “Ring Around the Rosie”. We took care of some maintenance work such as watering the plants in our room. We spent the rest of the time doing crafts and spending ample time in free play. Our auction class project is wet felting little sheep. We took the opportunity of time inside to finish this project the same day. You will have an opportunity to see it if you participate at our auction on April 16th.  It is so cute!

On Friday, we started the day indoors making little pots from our eggshells with the wheatgrass. Once finished, we were able to go out for a nature walk. We found a few remaining puddles from Wednesday’s showers. The class sweetly gathered around the puddle to fish. 

Enjoy your long holiday week and we look forward to seeing you back after good rest!

Kindly, 

Ieva and Brittany

Joyful Beginnings: March 22 - March 26

Violets have bloomed all over many backyards and meadows during these sunny spring days. On campus, there are beautiful patches of them everywhere.  It made a perfect theme for this week, including sharing a story about violets.

Monday, we visited our farm animals to check upon our new goats. They have settled happily into their new home.  While they are still pretty shy and careful around us, they are a little more courageous than the previous week. We will continue to visit them and help them to become more accustomed to us and, in time, we will all be great friends together.

On Wednesday, we had a full class with all our friends after a few days of smaller classes. Everyone was full of joy seeing everyone else in the classroom. We had a lot of fun playing together throughout the day.  We channeled this energy into planting the new flowers that were gifted to us. We all worked together to plant the yellow daffodils in full bloom around our playground. Since we are close to the pick-up and drop-off area, we are able to share our flowers with the whole school. We also worked on our new project for the school auction. The children planted wheatgrass into the eggshells. Once the grass sprouts, we will have beautiful little eggshell pots of small spring islands. We are so excited to help support our school through our auction project.

We continue to have new, observing students in anticipation of our coming, new school year.  While the current class may not remember their own experience visiting the class for the first time, they are welcoming and friendly to the new faces.  These visits are a nice opportunity for new students to learn about us and for us to meet new friends.

Kindly,

Ieva and Brittany

Joyful Beginnings: March 15 - 19

We had such a fun week with so many exciting things happening around us!  

Monday, we started our day with Theo’s 4th birthday. Theo has been in our Joyful Beginnings from the very beginning of this program. It is so exciting that he is going to kindergarten next year. Time always seems to fly so fast when we look back at our wonderful memories together! After celebrating Theo’s birthday, we went to our learning farm. The children were very excited to see our new baby goats. The baby goats are still very shy. They are still adapting to their new life on our farm.

Wednesday, during our nature walk, we observed all the various colors of the blooming trees. Together we tried to count how many white trees we could see while walking around our campus. The children were excited to find so many tiny meadow flowers in a variety of colors. Spring is truly here in all its colorful glory! Last week we planted radish seeds. These seeds grew into lush green plants. The students were excited to take their little pots of radishes home. It was a happy coincidence that these green pots were ready for St. Patrick's Day!

Friday, we had a smaller group of students. We spent our day playing, digging in our sandbox, going for another colorful nature walk, and, finally, modeling with clay. During our nature walk, the children found tree logs on the ground. They sat on them and pretended to be in a train. When asked, “Where are you going, my friends?”, they replied “To Costco”:) Costco is my favorite Saturday grocery store.

Our theme of the week was Pussy Willows. I have sweet childhood memories related to these little trees. Near my childhood home, we had a ditch bordering our garden. It was covered in magical, little gray pussy willows trees. I knew that when they started to bloom, the warm weather was almost here. These little trees are not as common here in the South; they are more easily found in the North where there is enough moisture for them to grow. We listened to the story “Pussy Willow Spring”.  We also shared in a poem about pussy willows (see below). The favorite part for the children was at the end of the verse when we said “Scat cat”. This whole month, we had the pussy willow branches on our nature table. This week we brought them into the classroom for our story time. The children were able to touch them and take them home. You may find some pussy willows in your child's pockets.:)

I know a little pussy,

Her coat is silver gray.

She lives down in the meadow,

Not very far away.

She`ll always be a pussy,

She will never be a cat.

For she`s a pussy willow,

Now what do you think of that!

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow,

Scat cat!

Ki Ieva & Ki Brittany

Joyful Beginnings: March 8 - 12

The spring continued opening its warm embrace which we happily accepted. The sun was shining and the weather was lovely and welcoming. Perfect weather for spending lots of time outside.  Even though our week was a little shorter, together we soaked up all the fun it had to offer.

This week the class played games centered around the kitchen.  Preparing and serving “meals'' to each other became the main activity and all the children enjoyed the lovely “food” their classmates made.  Imitation is the life of young children, and many of the students emulated what they see at home and within the larger community in which they live when sharing these pretend meals.  Also, on Wednesday each child brought in little vessels in which we planted radish seeds. As a class, we will be following their growth to see how quickly they will sprout. Once they do sprout, each child will take their pod with sprouted radish seeds home.  How proud they will be!

We continued sharing our songs and poems from last week. Please look at our Google Classroom if you would like to learn the songs we are singing. We visited our learning farm and shared our extra vegetables from home with the animals. The class so enjoys visiting and feeding our farm animals. It is such a nice tradition for our class.

We will continue to have visitors to our class. This is an opportunity to make new friends and to play and socialize with other children. It is always a fun event for our class and for our visitors as well. It is a meaningful and touching experience for all our students.  

Kindly,

Ki Ieva and Ki Brittany

Joyful Beginnings: March 1 - 5

This week's theme is all about our anticipation of the spring. We are starting to see many bright, beautiful flowers blooming around us. The daffodils are bright spring queens taking over our outside areas. Ki Gaby made us window flowers to help bring the joys of spring to our indoor classroom. The children are loving all they see around them. 

We have a new song,  “Spring is coming” and will post this song in our Google Classroom. Our story this week was “The First Day of the Spring”. In the story, Mrs. Thaw wakes up nature for the spring. Mrs. Thaw also cleans away the winter and the cold.  We feel like Mrs. Thaw is around us while we are outside on our campus too!

Last week’s Chickadee morning song is now our favorite to sing in class. Whenever the song begins, the children quickly join in by running happily around. As soon as the song stops, they run back to their seats. Of course, they love to do this many times.

`We had so much fun outdoors!  On Monday, we were greeted by lots of rain puddles. During our farm visit, children had a blast running and playing in these puddles near our garden ditch. The warmer weather makes this opportunity to play a perfect experience.  Everyone was wet, dirty, and full of joy! On Wednesday and Friday, the sunshine brought us gorgeous weather. We spent lots of time playing in our sandbox. The children were baking tasty pancakes and building nests for the returning birds. 

During our art time, we were coloring with yellow, as we enjoyed so much of the color yellow all around us.  We used crayons for our art projects. Yellow represented the beautiful daffodils and the warm sun that is preparing out outdoors for spring and more wonderful adventures together at our school.

With warmth and love,

 Ki Ieva and Ki Brittany

Joyful Beginnings: February 22 - 26

We returned from the Spring Break to the gorgeous weather. The days were so nice and warm that it was a pleasure to spend time outside. On our playground, we have a new little table and chairs. The students immediately put it to use! Together, they opened a nice, cosy restaurant with yummy food.  Such a delight to watch them have so much fun.

Our theme of the week focuses on hens and little song birds. We enjoyed listening to a song about Chickadees. We also listened to “Who fed the chickens?”, a song by Ella Jenkins, who is known as “The First Lady of the Children's Folk Song”. We encourage you to include some of her music at home as well.  Our story this week is “The Little Red Hen” which speaks about the value of hard work and the downfalls of laziness. When sharing stories such as these, as a part of our Waldorf-inspired curriculum, we do not share the morals of the stories with the children.  Rather we trust them to glean and understand the deeper meanings through time and conversation. During the colder days, we have started to listen to the stories while having our snack, a new experience for our class.

During our art time, our students used the clay to form and shape little chickadees. We also painted chickadees during our painting time. Lots of lovely little creatures were brought into this world during our Joyful Beginnings class this past week!

You will notice new students spending time with us here and there over the coming weeks as we start to look toward the next school year. This week we had our first guest students joining us for the day and we will have more days of guest students joining us during March. It is so lovely to see how friendly our class is toward these visiting students and how well our guests blend into our daily routine. 

With kindness,

Ieva and Brittany

Joyful Beginnings: February 8 - 12

It was another fun and busy week. We enjoyed all kinds of weather as everyone was geared up for it and ready to get busy!  We were bundled up for icy puddle exploration and then in our t-shirts as we played in the warm, sunshine. Layers are the key to a successful day at The Garden School! 

On Monday, our Middle school students performed a puppet show called Ruby`s Chinese New Year. It is a very sweet story about a girl called Ruby going to visit her grandmother. On her way, she meets all kinds of animals, something that always fascinated our students. Our Middle School friends made their puppets themselves using a technique called needle felting, learned the script in their Mandarin class, and then enacted the show for all classes during over the course of the week. What an amazing experience for them and a pleasure for us to watch. I will post a short version of this story in Google Classroom. The story is based on the book “Ruby`s Chinese New Year” by Vickie Lee.

Wednesday was a gorgeous sunny day!  We will slowly move into more and more of such lovely weather and it is thrilling to know it isn’t far away! We stayed longer outside as we went for a long nature walk and visited our art pocket. Doing our art outside was a very nice change as we had lately been doing all our craft activities inside. 

On Friday, we colored with red crayons on a heart-shaped paper. We used these colored papers to wrap all the goodies from the classmates. We also took the time to plant some flower bulbs for our classroom. We will be following their growth as we wait for the spring to come.

We are starting to prepare for the next school year. Our classroom had a guest student visiting us for the observation. She had a good time with our class. Our lovely group included her in our class activities; they were sweet and friendly to our guest. In the upcoming weeks, we will have more observation days where young guests will join us for play and adventure!

Our theme of the week was farm animals. We added a new silly poem about a donkey. All the class loved to join in when we got to “Hee how diddle dee”. Such great fun for everyone!

Our color of the week was red. We celebrated Chinese New Year. The red color in Chinese culture is associated with joy, luck, and happiness. The red color associates nicely with Valentine's day that is coming up this Sunday. 

Sharing love and kindness.

Kind heart are the gardens,

kind thoughts are the roots. 

Kind words are the blossoms

kind deeds are the fruits

Take care of your garden,

keep it free of weeds

Fill it with sunshine,

kind words and kind deeds.

 @thewaywewaldorf Kelly Ellis-Radahd


Have a wonderful mid-winter break,

Ki Ieva and Ki Brittany

Joyful Beginnings: February 1 - 5

This week came with colder weather. On one of our nature walks, we even found ice, which is always a thrilling time. The children were so excited for this winter moment. They experienced how cold ice is to hold in their hands for any length of time. We also learned how hard it is to not put in our mouths, a habit we will continue to cultivate. ;)

Each day seems to hold a special adventure for our class.  After enjoying ice on one of our days together, on another day, the children found some greenery left over from one of our Saturday open house events for prospective families. This they used to pretend to be butterflies.  Such a fun time they had with it.  Later in the day, we went visiting our farm animals friends, an activity the class always enjoys. Exploring the garden is always a welcomed adventure as well.  

Along with our enjoyment of our farm, we are continuing with our farm animals' theme.  We added a new poem about piggy and the three little pigs short story.  These will be posted in Google classroom for you all to enjoy together at home as well.  For our crafts, we were modeling with clay. We heard the piggy wiggy poem as we rolled balls of clay. As the poem progressed, the ball slowly turned into a long worm.  Worms help our gardens grow too!

February 2nd was Candlemas day. To celebrate it, we made earth candles together with all the grades students. It was a very beautiful experience to work with our older students and to see what our Joyful students have to look forward to as they become grades students one day. The grades students made their earth candles in the sandbox on our Joyful playground.  They had almost as much fun as our own students while there, happily imitating the Joyful play we share together. To include our Joyful students, who were not in session that day, in the celebration of the lengthening days and coming of spring, each was given a specially made beeswax candle to  take home. You can light up these candles while having beautiful thoughts towards the coming of the Spring.

I am looking forward to talking with you all at conferences.

Ki Ieva and Ki Brittany

Joyful Beginnings: January 25 - 29

We had a fun week having all our students together in class each day.  It felt great to have everyone back. 

On Monday, we went to the farm to say hello to our animals and give them carrot treats. The children were joyfully running through the garden area as they playfully followed the chickens. They went also to explore our garden’s big ditch, which is fun to climb and play in and around. On Wednesday, the weather was gorgeous. The children found their paradise in the big puddles in the forest. Thanks to all the rain, the puddles were so big that they could have been able to swim in them.  If I and Brittany would have let them, they would have happily done so! Some of the students made yummy mud pancakes too. Lasty, on Friday, we continued having our joyful time together with extra fun playing inside. We played “Ring Around The Rosie” and a snowball game. There was so much laughter and joy.

We continued our current theme about sheep and other farm animals into this past week. Our story of the week was “The Baby is Coming”. The story tells about all the farm animals who are so excited and can hardly wait until the farmer’s new baby is born. For our craft projects, we made sheep out of pinecones. We also made sheep by wet felting using wool roving. Finally, we finished the week by drawing the green grass that sheep like to eat the most.

We enjoyed a new farm song that will also be posted in Google Classroom. It is a very simple and fun song in which you can sing about all different animals.

When a cat wakes up in the morning, s/he always says “meow, meow”. 

When a cat wakes up in the morning, s/he always says…(pause for your child or yourself to repeat the sound).

What does s/he say? (say sound together).

If you have not yet RSVP’d for the All School Meeting, you can do so here. This meeting will be held on campus, outdoors and socially distanced. One member of each family is strongly encouraged to attend. This is a great way to get to see our campus and all of the amazing additions and improvements we have made to help our outdoor learning be comfortable and successful, and to hear more about the school and ask questions.

With joy,

Ki Ieva and Ki Brittany

Joyful Beginnings: January 19 - 22

Our Joyful Beginnings class theme for the week was sheep. We had fun with the song, “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep”. Many students already knew this song very well from singing it with their families at home. As I started singing this song for the first time, all the children were able to sing along. In general, our students enjoy singing other songs or reciting poems while they are playing.  

We enjoyed a new song for our circle time. This is such a sweet song. There is an original version and we have a class version too.  Both will be shared with you. The song is called “I Hear a Knockin` At My Door.”

We are continuing to explore the color blue. We have been drawing using the blue color. We also tried our hand at Bee’s wax. It is wonderfully pliable when warm, and feels so good to the touch.  It takes time and warmth to have it at it’s softest to model.  Our cold days did not lend themselves to much success with this material.  We will try some new warming techniques next time or we may wait and revisit wax modelling when it is much warmer, and therefore easier, to use. 

During our story time, every child was able to participate. Each student had a blue piece of silk and pieces of wool to represent white sheep. As we shared the poem and story, the children were able to hide the little sheep in the blue hills. We all enjoyed this interactive story time.

On Friday, our students had a nice surprise for all of us while dressing for our nature walk. Usually, our time to gear up into our outside clothing includes a few challenges as we get dressed and head outdoors. On Friday, everyone was on top of their dressing game and we were out quickly and nicely dressed. A treat for us all. We have also introduced a new routine during the dressing time. The children who are done with dressing are able to pick a book from our basket and read while waiting for their friends to get ready. This has the bonus of adding a little extra motivation for putting on clothes. This perk is really enjoyed by a few of our classmates.

Our students are growing up every day. Their play is becoming more imaginative and creative. They are also growing stronger. Watching our class play brings us joy and excitement. Their smiles melt our hearts. Thank you for sharing your child with us!

Parent conferences are right around the corner!  Please sign-up using the link provided.  Sessions will be in Zoom format.  I will share a Zoom link the day before the conference. 

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A054AA9A72FA1FD0-parent2

With love,

Ki Ieva and Ki Brittany

Joyful Beginnings: January 11-15

It was so great to be back on campus. All our students were energetic and ready to play, sing and explore. We had such a wonderful week together on campus.

Overall, the weather was nice wintery weather. The mornings were chilly, but the days warmed up and many days ended in glorious sunshine. We kept our students active while outside to ensure that they stayed nice and warm. If a child was sitting and not being active for too long or started looking chilly, we played tag and other running games until we were nicely warmed up again. Over break gravel was delivered in piles to the forest by trucks that created deep and muddy tracks. During our nature walk in the forest, the children had so much fun exploring these new attractions.

During our circle time, we learned a new poem with clapping that the children enjoyed and many tried to follow along. A recording of this poem will be posted on our Google Classroom. 

In our art class, we explored the color blue. Many students painted blue skies while others saw dragons in their blue paintings. This was our poem to go along with the blue color:

White sheep, white sheep,

On a blue hill,

When the wind stops,

You all stand still.

When the wind blows,

You walk away slow.

White sheep, white sheep,

Where do you go?

On Friday, we celebrated Liza’s birthday. The children listened to a story about Liza and helped sing along with our birthday song. Everyone enjoyed our first birthday party of 2021.

Thank you all for bundling up your child in layers for the colder mornings. This helps us to stay outside longer as everyone can stay warm and happy as they explore, play and learn together.

Kindy Beavers: January 4-8

Greetings Beaver Families!

Happy New Year!  We enjoyed seeing everyone this past week during our daily Zoom meetings.  We shared our adventures and new gifts and treasures, introduced our pets and sipped our favorite warm drink in our pjs.  It was also fun to color together, make pom poms from yarn, build fairy houses and cut paper snowflakes.  These activities, along with many others will remain posted on our Google Classroom - feel free to utilize this resource at any time :) 

Our story this week was a fun winter tale called “Frosty the Snowflake.”  Frosty lives on a blue cloud in the vast and airy sky.  One day, Brother Wind carries him from his cloud, along with many of his snow white brothers and sisters, down to the ground.  Frosty delights in how beautiful and unique they all are and he feels proud to be a snowflake.  He becomes part of a snowman, built by children playing in the snow.  He is then rolled into a snowball that is thrown onto the roof of a home.  The sun warms him and soon Frosty becomes a sparkling icicle - but not for long!  More sunshine comes and the icicle drips, turning Frosty into a drop that travels to the great river.  As a drop, Frosty no longer feels unique; rather, he finds it difficult to tell himself from the other drops flowing along beside him.  Two men on canoes splash their paddles into the water, lifting and throwing Frosting onto a leaf on a tree on the river bank.  His long journey has made him sleepy and so he closes his eyes, only to feel a warm breeze lifting him up, up, and away.  Brother Wind returned him to the very same cloud where his journey began, in the vast and airy sky. Thinking back on his adventures as a snowflake, an icicle, and a drop, it almost seems as though he were dreaming, but he knows that he was not.  He now feels ready to take on new and exciting adventures in the future. 

As we return to campus, please remember to dress warmly each and every day, with the following items being especially important: 

  • Layers! Don’t forget bottom layers - one layer of pants is not sufficient to stay warm.  Snow pants or heavy sweatpants over a bottom layer of pants is highly recommended. 

  • Hat and gloves - Even if your child does not typically like to wear these items, please pack them each day.  We will insist that everyone’s heads and hands are covered prior to morning play. 

  • Insulated Winter Boots - Unlined rain boots are not appropriate for winter temperatures.  Feel free to pack an extra pair of shoes for your child to change into if it warms up in the afternoon.

  • Optional: Hand warmers and foot warmers - if your child is sensitive to cold hands and feet, these work wonders!

  • Optional: A warm snack/hot tea - We will be eating lunch inside during the winter, but snack time will remain outside.  A warm snack, such as oatmeal or soup, can be especially comforting on chilly days. 

If you have any questions regarding winter gear and preparedness, feel free to reach out to us via email.

Kindly,

Ki Amy and Ki Fatima 

Joyful Beginnings: December 14 - 17

This last week of our fall semester, we all felt Jack Frost nipping at our fingers and noses. The weather did not stop us from having a fun time!  Thank you for dressing your child warmly and in layers!  This helps to keep our outside time a joyful time for all.

To be ready for our fun this week, we had filled some buckets with water in hopes of having some ice to play with for the students.  On Monday, the students found the bucket, only it was not yet frozen!  This did not stop them from having fun, though it was certainly not intended for a water play day!  Right away, they began filing smaller buckets from the big one, busily imagining and exploring. After all this fun, the children were a little bit shivering from the cold. Although they had fun, for safety during the winter, we will be more careful and empty the buckets out when they aren’t frozen as dry play is better for us all in the winter.  After stopping inside to dry off and warm up again, we went to the garden to see our animal friends. We spent a wonderful time in the garden. Ki Derek, our environment teacher, brought out one of our goats named Snowwhite. The children loved to feed her! Ki Derek showed us how best to pet the goat. Everyone had fun trying their hand at petting Snowwhite. We had so much fun that we lost track of the time. We needed to run back for our pick up time!

On Wednesday, we had a magical day! It was an even colder day than Monday and, in addition to the cold, it was raining outside. This was the first time in the winter semester when we started our day inside. Once the rain stopped, we went outside to participate in our Advent Spiral Walk. Joyful students were able to share in this experience for the first time, an experience all the students share each year at The Garden School through the Middle School grades.  

The magical meaning of the Advent Spiral centers on bringing your own beautiful light to this dark time of the year.  Each child carried a small mason jar with an unlit candle tucked safely down in it.  They then, one at a time, carefully walked through the spiral to the candle lit at the center. As each child entered the center of the spiral, I lit their tealight candle. Once the candle was lit, each child turned and walked out of the spiral (often skipping right over the greenery walks; so cute!).  As they left the spiral path, each child found a special golden star of their own choosing, put their glowing light down, and walked the rest of the way out of the spiral. It was such a magical experience!

Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful children with us!  We hope that you will make the time to go outside on these cold days at home and enjoy the brisk chill. After this time outside, it feels even more wonderful to go back inside our warm and cozy homes. Enjoy a warm cup of tea or cocoa and perhaps, light a candle.  We are fortunate to be a part of this beautiful world. Have a wonderful holiday break!

I look forward to seeing you again in our virtual buffer week January 4-8, 2021!

With love,  

Ki Ieva

Joyful Beginnings: December 7 - 11

It was so wonderful to see everyone back this week! We said good-bye to our friend Rhiannon before break, and we welcomed our new friend, Liza, this past week.  What a lovely class of students!

The past week started with a very cold Monday and finished with a warm and sunny Friday. All the children were perfectly outfitted, layered up with enough clothes to keep them warm in the cold and then able to easily shed layers as the sun came out. Well done, parents! They all look so cute with their winter gear! Taking off and putting on winter clothes takes time and effort. That is very purposeful work that teaches them new skills.

Our story of the week was about Jack Frost and snow angels. The children explored the color blue and used it to paint the sky. We also enjoyed singing all the songs that we were singing in our Zoom sessions. We turned our indoor playroom into a Winter wonderland. We added a few new toys and the children were very excited about our new changes. Joyfully, our Winter fairy has done a wonderful job.

This past Monday, we went to visit the animals. The students so enjoyed feeding them with the vegetables that each of them had brought to the school. We had a special excitement with our pet chickens. Some students were trying to catch the chickens to pet them.  They were really putting out their best effort to do so. What fun! On Friday, during our nature walk, we stopped by the long log next to the road. The children played there for a long period of time. They were imagining that spiders were living in the log. I am always amazed and delighted with how our Joyful students find creative and imaginative ways to play with the most simple things.

With love,

Ki Ieva and Brittany

Joyful Beginnings: Nov 30 - Dec 4

This week we met each other in our cozy homes through the virtual platform, Zoom. While it was a different sort of week for us, I am happy we were able to see each other every morning. For me, each day started with more joy and delight!

Indoors it was warm and cozy, but outside this past week it was chilly. The change in the weather opens doors for us to explore new things. The chill nicely coincided with the first week for our new theme - Winter! Our songs, poems and stories were about snowmen, snowflakes, icicles and forest animals.  A perfect fit as some of us even enjoyed some snow flurries this past week!

We had fun and adventure all week. On Wednesday, everyone had made snowmen and showed them to the rest of the class. All of the snowmen were so cute. Friday was made even more fun as we were a little bit sillier, wearing our winter hats and playing homemade drums. We finished the week as we started, in a joyous and playful mood.

Thank you to all Joyful parents for participating in all of our activities!  Our virtual week was a success!

Kindly,

Ieva

Joyful Beginnings: November 16 - 20

Thank you to our families for sending vegetables to the school! We visited our little farm and fed our donkeys and goats a hearty meal. Everybody was proud carrying their fruits and vegetables. Each of them tightly guarded their treasure as they carried them to our sweet animal friends.

This past week we continued our previous story about Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater. Everyone really enjoyed this story. By the end of the week, we finished going through all of our autumn songs that we have been learning over past weeks too.

On Monday of the past week, we continued preparations for the Lantern walk. We painted colorful papers as a source material for the lanterns. We then used these painted papers to create lanterns and add beautiful decorations. The children did so by using colorful leaves and pearls to embellish them.  How lovely they were!  Wednesday, the students took their gorgeous lanterns for the walk around our sanctuary. We had a route beautifully lit with candles in the darkened space. Each student had a little light in their lanterns as well. We walked down the route holding our lanterns and singing a song about our lanterns. Friday, we had a guest - a new student coming in for observations. Our class was nice and welcoming and helped adjust the guest to our routine.  It is wonderful to see how easily they welcome others into our group.

Please remember we will be holding school virtually November 30--December 4. For Joyful Beginnings, we will meet every morning at 9:00 am to share our sweet morning circle. It will last approximately 20 minutes. I will send out a Zoom link during Thanksgiving week.

Enjoy the time off from the school! 

Joyful Beginnings: November 9 - 13

We had a beautiful week with gorgeous weather. Gentle breeze, falling leaves, a little rain and lots of sunshine. Our plants in the small playground are also enjoying the beautiful weather. Our pea plants are now taller than all of our Joyful students!

On Monday, we celebrated Victoria’s 3rd birthday. It was our first birthday celebration this school year. For the rest of the week, the children were playing pretend birthdays.  As we usually do on Mondays, we went to a big playground. The children’s climbing skills are getting more advanced and now some of them can even reach the top of the climbing gym in the big playground! While watching them climb so high can make one a little nervous, it is a part of their growing up.  As with most activities that require skill, strength, and maturity, at our school we allow our students the time they need to grow and develop at their own pace.  We do not lift them higher ourselves or push them beyond what they are ready to do themselves.  Instead, we trust them, patiently wait, and encourage them when appropriate.  Before you know it, they are ready, willing, and able!

Our weekly trips to the farm are so enjoyable. The third grade students now expect our visits and are waiting for us to arrive. The older students help our Joyful students to collect hay and some grass to feed to our animals. On Mondays, starting after our Thanksgiving break, we invite you to pack one vegetable (carrot, celery, apple) to feed our donkeys and goats, if desired.

On Wednesday, we started a new poem and a story about Peter Pumpkin Eater. During our circle time, we also added a new song. We tried to sing it both fast and slow, an experience the children had a lot of fun doing. 

On Friday, we introduced wooden rhythm sticks to accompany us while singing our new song. The Joyful students loved to use their sticks to make music. This week, we painted lovely paintings. Next week, we will use those paintings to make lanterns. 

Thank you for sharing your beautiful children.

Ieva and Brittany

Joyful Beginnings: November 2 - 6

This week’s highlight was making our class’ scarecrow! The students really enjoyed the whole process of building them; they especially liked to help fill the clothing with the straw. We made two smaller, very cute scarecrows who fit nicely into our class. Our scarecrows are happily decorating our outdoor area.  Thank you for donating the clothing for them!  Along with building our own scarecrow, we had a fun time visiting other scarecrows around campus. This week, each class’ scarecrow will be out for display around our picnic tables. This is bound to be an exciting time for our class to visit them all at one time!

This past week we skipped our regular art activities so we were able to take our time and enjoy building our class scarecrows.  The children continued to take delight in playing in the sand. One of the most popular activities this week was to make sand birthday cakes with a candle. They invited each other to come and pretend to blow the candle out.

This past Monday we visited our learning farm and our donkeys, goats, and chickens. Our third graders shared some straw with our class which we then fed to our farm animals. What a sweet gesture from our older friends at school!

On Wednesday, the students came up with the idea to use pine branches as brooms. Everyone used their brooms to fly around in the woods. We had such fun singing the Old Mrs. Witch song while flying around in the forest.

As last week was a shorter week due to the weather, we repeated the story about Little Spider’s First Web, giving the students more time to enjoy it. We also started a new poem about autumn leaves. We used our colorful silk cloth pieces to imitate leaves while reciting this poem, which was a fun activity for the children. We will continue with this poem this week as well.

Next week be sure to check out all the scarecrows at the picnic tables!  Happy autumn!!

Joyful Beginnings: October 26-30

This week we unexpectedly had a shorter week. I hope you all had a safe and happy long weekend.

On Monday, I brought in a pumpkin to color with crayons for a fun art project. The students came up with the idea to put their hands on the pumpkin and trace them around. Now our pumpkin is decorated with all of our hands from our class. I love it so much! We also had a special opportunity to play in the big playground. Later, we went to visit our animals at our Learning Farm.

On Wednesday, on our nature walk we found  a lot of muddy puddles. I enjoyed seeing the different approaches each student took to navigate the puddles. Some went right into it and got dirty while others very carefully stepped around trying to avoid any mud!

The students also enjoyed our weekly song about Old Mrs Witch which was super fun. You can find this song in our class’s Google Classroom. Our story for this week was “Little Spider’s First Web”. This week I also observed that the students continued with their imaginative play: taking care of babies, putting them to sleep and waking them up in the morning. In the pictures for this week, you can see babies sleeping in the bunk bed and also them preparing dinner before the trip to the airport. We also had several puppies in the classroom. They have such a good time together.

With gratitude,

Ki Ieva

Joyful Beginnings: October 19 - 23

It was so exciting to talk to all of the parents of my students this week and to share our impressions and stories about your children. As the time to share seemed too short, I will plan to schedule longer sessions next time to allow more relaxed discussions.  It was so nice seeing all of you!

We continued our theme from last week - Autumn and Forest Animals. Due to our shorter school days, we took more time to share and enjoy the same stories and poems. Children, especially at this age, love repetition and sharing our stories and poems again was fun for all.  We did introduce one new poem about autumn leaves. Each student picked up fallen leaves to hide behind while we listened to this poem, an activity they so enjoyed.

The weather continued to spoil us with nice and warm autumn days. In our little playground, we planted new flowers - pansies. Our students used the opportunity to water our garden plants as well.  Caring for our plants, watching them grow, enjoying their beauty, have so many benefits for our students.  It seems a simple thing, but what they bring away from the experience goes very deep.

The students continue to use lots of imagination during their playtime. Both indoors and outside, they play as one large group pretending to be a family or all living in a castle or sailing together in a ship. It is so great to see so much role-playing and the way they share the stories with each other.  In our craft session, the children got the wind wands which they held out while walking from place to place. In our art session, we used yellow and red colors to paint autumn leaves and the wind.  All these interactions also allow us ample practice to learn to use gentle hands and to ask for a turn, rather than taking something, during our playtime.  So many opportunities for fun and growth!