The sunlight fast is dwindling.
My little lamp needs kindling.
It beam shines far in darkest night.
Dear lantern, guard me with your light.
Lanterns Walks Bring Light As Days Grow Shorter
Helle Heckmann Visits Madrona School
Join us for a special parent enrichment opportunity right here on Bainbridge Island! Helle Heckmann will speak at Madrona School on Saturday, November 14 at 10am. We'll meet in the Thimbleberry / Salmonberry classroom (lower archway just off the north parking lot) for a lecture entitled "The Five Golden Keys in Early Childhood."
Helle Heckmann is visiting us from Denmark where she founded the outdoor daycare and kindergarten, Nøkken. She brings over 30 years of experience working with young children and is a powerful, internationally-renowned voice for the protection of childhood. This talk will offer practical advice for parents, and an understanding of the young child's basic and most important needs. Helle Heckmann has been a mentor to many Waldorf teachers, and we are honored to welcome her to Madrona School!
All interested adults are most welcome!
Madrona School's Alphabet (C)
Our amazing class teachers are at the heart of Madrona School!
In our mixed-age preschool and kindergarten classes, a young child can expect to have one teacher for the duration of the program, sometimes over multiple years. This continuity of care is comforting to the young child, and it means that when it is time for grade school, the teacher is able to offer a full developmental picture to the incoming 1st grade teacher.
In the grade school, the class teacher loops up each grade with his or her class through the 8th grade. While not necessarily unique to Waldorf education, "looping" teachers are relatively rare in American schools. A class teacher has been a fixture of the Waldorf grade school since Rudolf Steiner founded the first school in Germany at the close of the first world war, however. Steiner believed that the strong relationship forged between a teacher and a student was essential to a robust education and healthy child development. Students in a Waldorf grade school begin each day and have main lesson with their class teacher, who becomes a familiar and beloved part of their school lives, even while they have a chance to learn from other teachers throughout the day in specialty classes. When a teacher spends this much time with his or her class, the education is truly child-centered, allowing a teacher to bring developmentally appropriate and emotionally engaging education to a constellation of students. Teachers and students build long-term relationships, and a teacher can truly foster community building within a class. It is the essential work of the teacher to know and see each student and to meet them where they are in any given year of their development -- no small task, but beautiful to witness as a parent of any grade schooler could tell you!
--edited from our weekly school newsletter, September 17, 2013 and April 28, 2014.
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!
