Kindergarten Honeybees: October 23 - 27, 2023

Greetings, Honeybees Families,

We had a lovely, warm week, followed by a week of the weather cooling back down! We have sent home the children’s change of clothes that stay at school to be exchanged for fall clothes. Please have them labeled in a bag and returned to school as a backup. Having the necessary and proper layers of clothing is the key to a happy, warm, and wonderful forest playschool experience.

On Monday, the children made wet felted pumpkins to go along with our Pumpkin Child story. They rolled wool roving into balls, dipped it into soapy water, and gently rolled the ball between their palms to make it firmer. This was a valuable sensory and tactile activity that included the smell of the apple spice soap, the warm water, and the wool texture turning from soft to firm in their hands. The children also had to determine the correct pressure to use to roll the wool. On Friday, the children watched our story in a puppet show and were delighted to see the little pumpkin child come to life as she emerged out of her felted pumpkin. Also, on Friday, we started working on our lanterns for our upcoming festival, when the children will carry their lighted lanterns through the forest at night.

We are looking forward to being together again for our upcoming Lantern Walk festival on the evening of November 7th. This is a reverent time for us to come together and carry our inner light forth as we enter a season where the days are short and the nights are long. Below are the songs we will sing together as we walk along our forest path with our glowing lights leading the way. Please refer to the top of our messenger page for a link to the songs so you can sing together at home before the festival. 

Announcements & Reminders:

  • Please join us tomorrow tonight, 11/1, at 6:00 pm for our Early Childhood curriculum night. We will meet upstairs in the kindergarten classrooms to talk about what winter looks like for our forest program and the clothing and gear needed when cold temperatures set in. This evening is for grownups only.

  • This week looks to be getting quite cold, especially in the mornings. Please dress children in layers, with warm socks and footwear and coats, hats, and gloves.

  • We are looking for two volunteers in our class to bake gingerbread and bring it to Lantern Walk.  We have a standard recipe and individual bags for pre-portioning that we will provide to all volunteer bakers. Please coordinate with our class rep, Silvia Ferreira, if you are willing to help.


Upcoming Events:

  • 11/1: NO SCHOOL: Teacher in-service

  • 11/1: Joyful Beginnings and Kindergarten Parent Night: 6 pm - 7 pm

  • 11/7: Kindergarten Lantern Walk: 6 pm

  • 11/7: Grades 1 - 3 Lantern Walk: 6:30 pm *Please note new date for grades

  • 11/17: Thanksgiving Luncheon 11 am: Half Day

Thank you for all that you do and for sharing your precious children with us. 

Peace and Light,

Ki Fatima 

Kindergarten Honeybees: October 17-20, 2023

Greetings Honeybee Families, 

Thank you for joining us at the Kingdom of Halloween festival. We hope everyone enjoyed the experience. We appreciate our volunteers for helping out at the craft table and for all those who helped put it together! 

We had our first tea time this past week. It was perfect for the chilly morning, and the children enjoyed a warm cup of peppermint tea. They delightfully watched their breath and the steam rise from their cups. It looked truly magical in the morning light. We will have more tea days as the weather gets colder. 

Our forest is now full of colorful leaves. The children enjoyed raking pathways around our platform and creating leaf piles. They were invited over to the Turtle’s class for some fun leaf play. We’ve had many leaf collectors as well, as we take our nature walk from the forest to the garden. Our nature table is filled with various new leaves each day. 

The children enjoyed hearty laughter at our story called The Pumpkin Child. It is about a lady who wished more than anything to have a child of her own, so much in fact that she said she would love the child even if it looked like a pumpkin! To her delight, she was given a child, but soon after, the child turned into a pumpkin. Of course, she loved the child all the same. The pumpkin child grew and grew until she could no longer be carried, so she rolled around the house, down the steps, and through the village. But one day, it was discovered that inside the pumpkin was a lovely maiden.   


Announcements and Reminders:

  • Please continue sending coats, hats, and gloves daily.


Upcoming Events:

  • 11/1: NO SCHOOL: Teacher in-service

  • 11/1: Joyful Beginnings and Kindergarten Parent Night: 6 pm - 7 pm

  • 11/7: Kindergarten Lantern Walk: 6 pm

  • 11/7: Grades 1-3 Lantern Walk: 6:30 pm *Please note new date for grades

  • 11/17: Thanksgiving Luncheon 11 am: Half Day

Peace and Light,

Ki Fatima

Kindergarten Honeybees: October 9 - 13, 2023

Greetings, Dear Honeybee Families,

Thank you for joining us for conferences this past week. It is always a joy to speak and share with you about your child. 

Last week truly felt like Autumn when we arrived in our classroom as we found the ground carpeted with golden leaves. The children have been collecting all the various colored leaves they find and placing them on our nature table. Our nature table is a beautiful Autumn scene, which now includes the Apple tree and Star fairy from our puppet show this past week. During lunch, one of the children wanted to see if the story was true, so we sliced open his apple from home and indeed we found a star inside. Their faces lit up with delight, “It IS a true story!” On Wednesday the students acted our story out in a play, and on Friday they saw the puppet play version. Ki Annabelle also shared a delicious apple muffin treat with the class for our shared snack. Thank you Ki Annabelle! 

We had our first fire of the year! The children helped collect pinecones and were so excited to see the fire grow bigger and bigger. They rolled over tires and filled them with pine straw to make couches and placed stones together to make little chairs and all sat around the glowing warmth. It was a wonderful way to start our morning after circle. 

We look forward to seeing you all at our Kingdom of Halloween festival THIS Saturday.  If you have not signed up to volunteer yet, we do need more help at our nature craft booth.  Please sign up here.  Thank you!

Announcements and Reminders:

  • The cool Autumn weather has arrived! Please be sure children come to school dressed in layers, a warm hat and gloves. Keeping warm is essential for students to be comfortable throughout the day.

  • Please plan to attend our next curriculum night on Wednesday, 11/1 at 6:00 pm. All of the early childhood classes will meet together to talk about winter weather gear and how we manage winter weather at school.

Upcoming Events:

  • 10/21 Kingdom of Halloween: 4 pm - 8 pm

  • 11/1 NO SCHOOL:  Teacher in-service

  • 11/1 Joyful Beginnings and Kindergarten Parent Night: 6 pm - 7 pm


Thank you for all that you do and for sharing your precious children with us. 

Peace and Light,

Ki Fatima

Kindergarten Honeybees: October 2 - 9, 2023

Greetings, Dear Honeybee Families,

We introduced our new Autumn circle this past week. Our circle begins with a farmer who wakes up, mounts her horse, and gallops away.  As the farmer moves through her day, the children gallop and go through many different motions, such as pulling weeds, digging with spades, and piling up the crop. The farmer gets back on her horse after her work is done and gallops away again. Still following our farmer, the children come to a halt as the farmer spots a beautiful apple tree. This transitions into our next song about an apple tree during the various seasons. Following this, our next verse is about an apple that falls from the tree. We quickly picked it up, looked at it, and carried it home to make applesauce. Each song or verse transitions into the next and makes a sweet story for the children to live into. Below is one of our circle songs. 

Here is my trunk, I'm a tall, tall tree

In the autumn, the apples fall from me

They drop, they drop, they drop

Here is my trunk, I'm a tall, tall, tree

In the winter, the snowflakes fall on me

They glisten, they glisten, they glisten

Here is my trunk, I'm a tall, tall, tree

In the springtime the blossoms, bloom on me

They bloom, they bloom, they bloom

Here is my trunk, I'm a tall, tall tree

In the summer, the breezes blow through me

I bend, I bend, I bend

Over the course of the week, we had various birds visiting our bird feeder that is placed near our platform. As we have lunch and snack, the birds come and have their snack too. The children are quiet so they do not scare them away. It is delightful to see all the variety of birds. The children are learning how to weave using our looms and loom bands of various colors. While this activity requires more advanced fine motor skills, the children are deeply engaged, spending a good part of their morning working on their projects. Each Friday, we change the obstacle course, and this time it was designed by the students the day before. They added some tires to the obstacle course and built a bridge using large sticks. Having helped create this course, the students enjoyed it even more than usual.  

Announcements and Reminders:

  • If you have not yet signed up for conferences, please do so here

  • If you have a full-day student and have not sent in a blanket for rest time following the break, please do so as soon as possible. The students enjoy having blankets, which bring comfort and warmth and help them rest better, especially now that it is cooler outside.

  • Please send your child with a jacket and long pants every day. If your child borrows a warm layer from the school, please wash and return it so we have it when it is needed by any student again.

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 the date change

  • 10/21 Kingdom of Halloween

  • 11/1 NO SCHOOL - Teacher in-service

  • 11/1 Parent Night for Joyful Beginnings and Kindergarten classes, 6 pm - 7 pm

As always, thank you for all that you do and for entrusting your precious children to our care.

Peace & Light,

Ki Fatima

Kindergarten Honeybees: September 18-22, 2023

Greetings, Dear Honeybees Families,

We hope you enjoyed the break and were able to experience the lovely autumn breezes together. It is good to see the children all together again and to witness the seasonal changes in our forest space. As we enter into this new season, we are beginning a new autumnal morning circle. We will be learning new songs and movements that mirror the movements and sounds of the season. 

The last Monday before our break was full of sweet surprises as we entered our forest classroom. During the previous Community Workday, parents helped hang up our hammock, built a beautifully crafted shelf in the mud kitchen, and our sandbox was moved into our forest space. The children eagerly helped fill it up with sand and it has become one of their favorite places to play and build together. Thank you to our Community Workday families for all that you do for our class and children. 

We had a very busy week, with the theme of Courage living in our days, preparing us for the day of Courage on Friday. Each day, the children listened to a story about George, Princess Cleolinda, and the Dragon. It is a story about courage, compassion, and helping one another even when we feel afraid. Over the course of the week, the children crafted shooting stars, as there are shooting stars in our story that help guide their way. We also dyed capes with the goldenrod that was harvested by our families (thank you!). This was a wonderful sensory activity that also allowed the children to see the process of things, which is so important for them at this age. By pulling the flowers, dipping the white fabric into the yellow dye and watching it change color, the students were able to experience how it feels, looks, and smells and watch the transformation take place before them. In our pedagogy, it is said that the children’s will is bound up with their metabolic system, so they need to see processes. Things that are already prepared don’t have the same effect. On Friday, the children were each asked, as George and Cleolinda were asked in our story, “Are you brave and true?”,  “Are you kind and thoughtful?” to which each child resolutely responded, “Yes!” and were cloaked and handed their shooting star, which they joyously waved about as we walked up together from our forest.

Announcements & Reminders: 

  • If you have not yet signed up for conferences, please do so here. It will be lovely to meet with each of you.

  • On chilly mornings, your child needs to come to school wearing a sweater or warm jacket. We understand some children may be reluctant to wear extra layers, but as we are an outdoor forest school, it is expected that the children are properly dressed when they come to school. Please also include long pants in your child’s backpack if they wear shorts to school.

  • As the weather will be getting chillier, we would like to make rest time a bit more cozy for our students. Please pack a small pillow your child can use during rest time. We will keep it at school. 

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

As always, thank you for all that you do and for sharing your precious children with us. 

Peace and Light,

Ki Fatima 

Kindergarten Honeybees: September 11-15, 2023

Greetings, Dear Honeybees Families, 

Last week, the children created butterflies out of tufts of wool. The children helped gently pull the wool apart and decorate their wings. We attached yarn to the finished product, and the children delighted in flying around their butterflies. We have a real-life butterfly in the making as well! One of our forest caterpillars made its way to one of our silks and built its cocoon onto it. We have hung up the silk to keep it safe and await the opportunity to hopefully see it emerge as a winged creature.

Students were able to learn how to finger chain and finger knit if desired.  It was wonderful to see experienced students teach the younger ones the steps for this handwork activity. The Turtles class “next door” chopped up big pieces of wood and gave them to our Honeybees to turn into “white bark stew.” They grated the bark on the tree and it made shreds like parmesan. We are happily observing a lot of collaboration and group play among the students and between the kindergarten classes! 

The Autumn equinox is nearing and we welcome it with a warming story of courage as we enter into this new season. In our last story, the elderly emperor needed to choose one of his children to become the new emperor. He gave them each nine days' time and one hundred golden coins to find the most beautiful thing in the world. The eldest rode his horse into the marketplace, discovered a beautiful painting, and thought it to be the most beautiful thing in the world. The middle rode her horse into the mountains and found a cave with a sleeping dragon inside and a magnificent pearl beneath his chin, which she thought to be the most beautiful thing in the world, so she took it. The youngest walked into the marketplace but found more sadness than beauty, for there were people who were hungry, poorly dressed, and without shelter. She gave away her golden coins one by one until she had nothing left. She returned to the kingdom empty-handed and apologized to the emperor for having no beautiful thing to share. However, word of her caring heart spread throughout the kingdom every day for those nine days and the emperor crowned her the Empress; indeed, a caring heart is the most beautiful thing in the world. This week, our story is about the courage and bravery of George and Cleolinda, who embark on a journey to come face to face with the same dragon from our last story. However, the story has a surprising turn of events and the fearsome dragon has another side to tell!

As always, thank you for all that you do and for sharing your precious children with us. 

Announcements and Reminders:

  • Mornings are getting chilly! Please have your child equipped with a light sweater. 

  • This Friday is a HALF DAY (12:15-12:30 dismissal) for all students. Please use the carpool line for pickup as usual.

  • Next week is FALL BREAK! There is also no school for students the following Monday, 10/2, due to teacher in-service

  • Conferences are coming up soon, October 12th and 13th. A sign-up will be available in the next messenger.

Upcoming Events:

  • 9/22 Half Day - Day of Courage

  • 9/25-9/29 Fall Break (No School)

  • 10/2 Teacher In-Service (No School)

  • 10/12 Half Day - Parent Conferences

  • 10/13 No School - Parent Conferences

  • 10/21 Community Work Day 10 am - 1 pm

  • 10/21 Kingdom of Halloween

Thank you for sharing your children with us and for being part of our community. We hope you have a wonderful break.

Peace and Light,

 Ki Fatima  

Kindergarten Honeybees: September 4-8, 2023

Greetings, Dear Honeybee Families, 

It was lovely to see all our families together on Curriculum Night. Thank you for joining us, sharing a snack together, living a little into the children’s school day, and engaging in discussion about our daily rhythms. We appreciate all your care and look forward to coming together again with our wider Early Childhood community on November 1st for another Curriculum Night, where we will discuss the importance of warmth and winter gear in Early Childhood. 

This past week was full of fun adventures. We saw a beautiful heron fly over us while we were at the creek. We also saw the sixth graders' volcano project they made out of blue clay they harvested themselves by the creekside. The children were in awe and wondered if they were real volcanoes! They decided to make their own little volcanoes with clay they dug up and also made channels of water and deep wells. At the platform, we had two different craft activities this week. Some children used a needle and thread to string wooden beads to make a necklace. We also made felted pictures, where the children took tufts of wool and shaped them onto the felt square in the shape or image that they wanted. The students then watched as the teacher helped to needle-felt their design in place. We had two ladybugs, a rainbow, a family and beach scene, and an abstract colorful piece, to name a few. We were also visited by the first graders, who performed songs in Spanish for us- it was a joy to see them, and the kindergartners were very excited about having some of our older students in their class. We also introduced beanbags to our morning circle. We practiced passing them down from one hand to the other, balancing the bean bag on our heads while walking, and dropping them down from our heads into the palms of our hands. This is a great activity for the children to help develop their coordination, balance, and proprioceptive abilities. 

This week we plan to prepare dye for a special project inspired by the Day of Courage. If you are able, please harvest goldenrod and/or marigolds and bring them to school this week. We can use as much as you can find! Goldenrod is a flowering plant that grows in fields, meadows, and forest edges throughout our local area. Thank you! 

Announcements & Reminders: 

  • Please send your child in with bug spray. 

  • Our mornings are getting chilly, please pack a light sweater with your child.

Upcoming Events:

  • 9/16 Community Workday 9 am - 12 pm

  • 9/22 Half Day - Day of Courage

  • 9/25-9/29 Fall Break (No School)

  • 10/2 Teacher In-Service (No School)

  • 10/12 Half Day - Parent Conferences

  • 10/13 No School - Parent Conferences

  • 10/21 Community Work Day 10 am - 1 pm

  • 10/21 Kingdom of Halloween


Gratitude for sharing your precious children with us and for all that you do. 

Peace & Light, 

Ki Fatima

Kindergarten Honeybees: August 28- September 1, 2023

Greetings, Dear Honeybee Families, 

The children worked happily in the forest classroom last  week. Some of the children came together and took down a structure made in the previous year and, using some of the same materials, rebuilt a very sturdy fort adjacent to the last one. The students created rooms and used a brush to sweep the ground on the inside. The students placed a strong stick they could sit and stand on between the branches of a tree, which serves as the “lookout.” Nearby, we also discovered our sycamore tree shed much of its bark, which made for perfect drawing canvases. The children used chalk to draw and create maps on the bark. Leaves and various nature items were used to decorate canvas craft bags, which students will use to store their handwork projects. They carefully placed their nature collection onto their personal bag and were delighted to see the effect it created after we sprayed paint over it. 

We were also visited by many special creatures this past week. Various caterpillars were spotted in our forest space, even making their way onto our platform. The children were wonderful stewards and made sure the creatures were carefully moved to a safe area. They used a leaf to move a caterpillar to a tree and watched it crawl all the way up until it could no longer be seen. During lunch, we also heard the hooting of an owl, a new bird call we hadn’t heard in the forest before. The most exciting event occurred right before going home: a hummingbird hovered on our platform. We also celebrated our dear Silas’s birthday this past week. Happy Birthday, dear Silas. 

This week we look forward to beginning more handwork activities. Now that the children have finished making their craft bags, they have a place to store their handwork projects! We will introduce finger knitting and stringing wooden beads to make necklaces. These activities require focus and help the children develop their fine motor skills, as well as give them a sense of joy and confidence as they see what they are able to create with their own precious hands. We also plan to introduce bean bag games, which will help the children strengthen their hand-eye coordination and gain practice at crossing the midline, which strengthens the neural connection between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Plus, it’s a lot of fun!

Upcoming Events:

  • 9/5 Joyful Beginnings and Kindergarten Curriculum Night 6 pm (adults only)

  • 9/6 Grades 1- 5 Curriculum Night 6 pm and Sixth Grade 7 - 8 pm (adults only)

  • 9/16 Community Workday 9 am - 12 pm

  • 9/22 Half Day - Day of Courage

  • 9/25-9/29 Fall Break (No School)

Thank you for all that you do and for sharing your precious children with us.

Ki Fatima 

Kindergarten Honeybees: August 21-25, 2023

Greetings, Dear Honeybee Families,

We had a full week of sweet celebrations! We celebrated Amelia’s 6th birthday on Monday and Nicholas’s 5th birthday on Wednesday. We enjoyed listening to stories from their childhoods and making birthday wishes for our dear friends. Thank you also for all the love and for sending flowers and gifts with your child to celebrate my birthday; it was much appreciated. We shared the cantaloupe and chocolate banana bread with the children, which was delightful! 

Last week, we visited a new section of the creek called “Kindy Beach.” It was nice to spend time there in the morning while the weather was still cool. By afternoon, we were inside, and the children were busy building forts with pillows and chairs. They also worked together to complete a 100-piece puzzle of the world with pictures of various animals and matching animal figures that could be placed in the area of the world they live in. Our class has an extensive vocabulary when it comes to their knowledge of the animal kingdom. 

This week, we will share a puppet play of the story the children have been listening to called “Stone Soup.” It is a classic, and the children love hearing it! It also helps the students feel more inclined to taste our vegetable soup, which we now call “Stone Soup”. The children were full of glee when they discovered an actual stone in our soup bowl. 

Please save the date for our Curriculum Night on September 5th (adults only, please). We will gather together to review our daily rhythm, learn the value of practical work for the students, and more!

Announcements & Reminders: 

  • Please send your child in with bug spray; the mosquitos are active!

  • Please pack a change of clothes in your child’s backpack. 


Upcoming Events:

  • 9/4 Labor Day (No School)

  • 9/5 Joyful Beginnings and Kindergarten Curriculum Night 6 pm

  • 9/6 Grades 1-5 Curriculum Night 6 pm, Middle School 7 pm

  • 9/16 Community Workday 9 am - 12 pm


Thank you for all that you do and for sharing your precious children with us.

Peace & Light, 

Ki Fatima

Kindergarten Honeybees: August 14-18, 2023

Greetings Dear Honeybee Families,

We had a wonderful first week of school and the children played happily together through each day. On Monday, the children helped to peel and chop vegetables for our shared soup snack. This important practical work activity helps develop the children’s fine motor skills and gives them a sense of joy when they see the vegetables they brought and prepared inside their soup. On Tuesday, we visited the creek. The children enjoyed skipping stones, digging wells in the sand, making little leaf rafts, and watching them float downstream. We visited the animals on the farm on Wednesday and were delighted to meet our new Angora rabbits. It was perfect timing as they were being sheared. The children were seen playing and running around with tufts of rabbit fur in hand. We also discovered two eggs laid by our lovely hens! 

This week we plan to put on a play about the story the children have been listening to over the past week. The story is about a mother raincloud traveling far and wide searching for the perfect plot of land to drop off her little raindrops. She finally found a patch of ground and let them rain down to the earth, one by one. The smallest raindrop held tightly to mother raincloud and didn’t want to leave; however, after loving encouragement, she rained down and discovered a seed friend buried beneath the earth. She hugged her tightly, and the seed burst open with joy and grew into a lovely sunflower. 

Announcements & Reminders:

  • Please pack an extra change of clothes in your child’s backpacks.

  • Hard-soled, closed-toe water shoes or old sneakers are required at Creekcess.

Upcoming Events:

  • 8/26 Community Work Day 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.

  • 9/4 Labor Day (No School)

  • 9/5 Joyful Beginnings and Kindergarten Curriculum Night 6 p.m.

  • 9/6 Grades Curriculum Night 6 p.m.

Thank you for all that you do and for sharing your precious children with us. 

Peace & Light,

Ki Fatima 

Kindergarten Honeybees: August 9-11, 2023

Greetings dear Honeybees Families,

Thank you for joining us at Meet and Greet on Monday; it was lovely to see all our Honeybee families together. The children started school on Thursday and Friday with plentiful rain showers. By afternoon, the sunshine came out and there were many puddles for splashing! Our Honeybees are getting aquatinted with our new space and new friends, it’s lovely to see them already forming bonds and working together so well. We have a sweet bunch! The children were able to explore both our indoor and outdoor classroom. It was a great way for them to become familiarised with both spaces. We started our day with morning circle where we have gentle songs to greet each day and create a space of warmth and welcome for the children. The children listened with smiles and followed along with the movements. Inside the classroom, they worked on puzzles together, playing at the dollhouse, the kitchen, and colouring. In the forest, the highlight was our giant puddles, as well as the mud kitchen of course! 

We are stepping into our rhythm more deeply this week as we start our weekly activities. Our strong in-breath and out-breath rhythm holds the children beautifully and makes the day go by seamlessly. We are so excited and are looking forward to learning and growing together this year.

Announcements and Reminders:

  • It didn’t take us long before we learned that our new forest space gets A LOT more muddy! We have made necessary changes from those we originally asked parents. In addition to keeping an extra change of clothes at school, we also ask you to keep another change of clothes in your child’s backpack. The clothes that stay at school will be back up to be used if the backpack set is used and a third set is needed. Please check your child’s backpack each day to see if it needs to be replenished. Thank you. 

  • Children MUST have rain pants and rain jacket, or a rain suit, on rainy OR wet days. 

  • Please keep insect repellent in your child’s backpack, the forest this time of year is full of mosquitoes. 

  • We will begin shared snack this week. 


Upcoming Events:

  • 8/26 Community Work Day 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.

  • 9/4 Labor Day (No School)

  • 9/5 Joyful Beginnings and Kindergarten Curriculum Night 6 p.m.

  • 9/6 Grades Curriculum Night 6 p.m.


Thank you for sharing your precious children with us.

Peace & Light,

Ki Fatima