Parent Enrichment with Susanna Reynolds

We are so pleased to welcome Susanna Reynolds back for her second of three workshops this school year. All interested adults are welcome to join us in the 3rd grade classroom on Thursday, November 5 at 6:30pm. Susanna's workshop, entitled, "Seeing our Children in the Dark and in the Light: Becoming More Comfortable With The Polarities of Growth With Your Unique Child(ren)."

Susanna will work with us in conversation and with art to explore the struggling steps and triumphs in grade school children's growing minds and bodies, even as we celebrate their colorful expression and feeling lifes. When we become more comfortable with the fluctuating steps that occur in growth, with can better weather constant change.

Susanna is the Director of Sound Circle Center’s Parenting Programs, and in private practice at Seattle Sensory and Structural Integration. We are always pleased to host her across the water!

Madrona School's Alphabet (B)

What makes a Madrona School education unique and special?
During the 2013-2014 school year, we celebrated what a Waldorf education offers both our children and our community as we strive to graduate creative and eager lifelong learners. Using the alphabet gave us 26 aspects to celebrate! 

B is for...Bread Day! Why do we bake bread in our early childhood classrooms? The obvious answer is because it tastes amazing and fills our hungry young students with a warm, nutritious snack. Yet, the process offers so many benefits, eliciting a robust sensory experience, even as it provides an anchoring weekly rhythm in the early childhood classroom. The activity of baking bread engages the sense of touch through kneading and shaping the silky dough, it engages the sense of smell as the bread bakes, it engages the ears though the songs sung throughout shaping ("Five hot buns in the bakery shop...."), and it enhances class community as the children come together to shape their buns and to eat them warm from the oven. Baking bread also provides an outlet for the purposeful work that young children crave, an activity that they can easily see and participate in from start to finish over the course of a morning. And of course, it is fun and imaginative; sometimes dough gets shaped into worms, bugs or as some grade school students fondly remember, bunnies, hearts or a plate (more room to spread on butter and jam!). 

We all look forward to 'Bread Day' at school. Some children routinely save a bit for a sibling or a parent, spreading the anticipation. And, ask any of our older students, and they will tell you their fond memories of  kindergarten bread. Each year, our older students (and frankly, many teachers) make it their business to know which days are bread days, and they might peek in at lunch, hoping for leftovers. It becomes very nostalgic, and offers a real reminder of the beginning of their respective school journeys. There is a lot baked into each week's bread!

Want to bake at home? Here is a copy of one of the recipes used in our preschool and kindergarten classrooms.

--reprinted from the weekly school newsletter, September 23, 2014.

A thousand words....

Sometimes an image says just what you'd like to articulate. This is one of those, taken on a recent class field trip to a local pottery studio. Waldorf education nurtures the heart and hands, as well as the mind. And a creative spirit lives within each one of us.

Beginning Each Day

Why do we start each day with a handshake and morning verse? Begin as you mean to go on -- a sentiment often quoted and attributed to many, and applicable to the conscious manner in which our grade school students begin each morning. When the bell rings and the children are dismissed inside to their classrooms, they begin their school day with a handshake and a greeting from their teacher. This deliberate beginning on the part of the teacher offers a moment of being seen for each child, perhaps an opportunity to share a brief story, to ask a question. Once inside the classroom, the class stands together to say their morning verse. The morning verses are recognizable at Waldorf schools worldwide, written by Rudolf Steiner, and further the opportunity to settle into the day. The verses ground each student, mindfully highlighting wonder, awe and the human spirit. In the upper grades, the verse goes: I look into the world / In which the sun is shining / In which the stars are sparkling / In which the stones repose / Where living plants are growing / Where sentient beasts are living / Where human souls on earth give dwelling to the spirit....To thee Creator-Spirit / I will now turn my heart / To ask that strength and blessing / For learning and for work / May ever grow with me. Lofty and warm words with which to begin the day! And it is this mindful and attentive start to each and every day throughout grade school that helps to honor and cultivate a robust inner life for each child.

--edited from the weekly school newsletter, April 14, 2015

On a related note, check out this opinion piece from the New York Times, published on April 17, 2015: Hey Kids Look At Me When We're Talking by Bruce Feiler.