Morning Song School, Mill Valley, Marin, CA

We had a very full week, leading up to an even fuller one next week (which is now already!!). We can’t believe it’s been almost two months since school has started. We teachers cherish every moment and feel very lucky to have this as our work.

A big thank you to Sashas family for the beautiful flowers.

From MSB20101023

Circle has been full of witchy adventures. We are flying on our broomsticks and visiting our witches garden, where we are stirring our brew and adding things each day to the cauldron. We are singing the songs of the goblins and the jack o lanterns, and recognizing that the jack o lanterns were all once yellow pumpkins, growing on a sturdy vine before they became a jack o lantern with a little light that shines.

From MSB20101023

Our current story is of a goblin who wakes up from his cave after a long day of sleeping and finds that mischief has come over him…..so he ventures into town and causes all sorts of trouble (sneaks into houses to put salt in the sugar bowls, hide everyones clothes and open all the windows….and also sneaks down to the farms where he pulls all the cows and makes such a clanging and clattering with pails that the hens won’t lay eggs!!). The townspeople eventually get so fed up with the trouble that they “hatch a plan”. The next time the goblin comes around to their homes, he sees scary faces peeking out of every window at him, and also down at the farms from each cow’s stall……and because goblins can’t see very well, he does not know the scary faces are really just pumpkins carved into jack o lanterns! The goblin leaves and never returns to the town again, or any town!

Our pumpkin adventure here is very fitting with our current story. It was very exciting for the children to visit the back garden, they were surprised when they found we got a visit from the “Pumpkin King”, who left the children haystacks and lots of pumpkins to play with and some for carving into jack o lanterns. The children spent the entire week carrying, wheel-barrowing and organizing the pumpkins in various ways. At one point they lined them all up in a pumpkin row, another time they tried putting them up on the haybales (until they fell behind, giving them an extra challenge trying to get them back out of the hole), and some of them were hidden under piles of straw. Several of the children played pirates in the ship during the week, and almost the entire outdoor play in the garden was spent in the new play area by all of the children at once.

Pumpkin King Garden

Our back garden is really coming along. We still have plenty to do. We have some digging and finishing some of the river area, woodwork here and there, a mural to make on the back fence and some prime and painting of the beams and posts for the new swing area. As the Fall weather is rolling in, the leaves are starting to swirl in the air and the leaves are all changing. It will be time to clear our gardens out soon! The Monday children got to paint outdoors in the back garden. It was very nice.

Painting

We painted orange pumpkin paintings with the children on Monday and Thursday. We later turned them into jack-o-lantern cut outs to hang in the windows. We have made these before and they are so fun for decorating. It’s nice to give the children chances as they get older and more coordinated to make them again, doing more of the drawing, cutting and gluing without as much adult help.

Jackie O

Our baking day was fun. We got to cook pumpkins and make pumpkin muffins….not all of the children wanted to help but the ones who did worked very hard! The cracking of the eggs is always fun, they love the idea until it starts to come out of the shell and get on their fingers. The room smelled sweet and full of spice.

Baking

The laughables of the week are endless, but here are a couple…
one child said, “I just had a jamba juice the other week, and when I drink a drink that cold it makes my body do funny things”. We asked him what his body does when he has a cold drink. He said “It makes my head go down and my arms go up, like this”…. and he showed us by bending foward and tucking his head down……and putting his elbows up like chicken wings.

Another was when a child said that rainbows are red, and thats why he has a blue rain jacket without any fishes on it. How lucky we get to hear their thoughts and ideas.

Important information for the week: PLEASE READ

We look forward to our celebration this upcoming Friday. If your child shows fear toward halloween like visuals, please let me know soon. We will have a surprise for the children, a witches magic tent with a cauldron and brew, with a real witch and broom. She is fun and magical, bringing only stories I create with her to make sure it’s all age appropriate and not scary. Sometimes just the sight of a witch in the room is a little scary to a child now and then, but its all fun and smiles from her. Please do not tell your children anything, we will be talking about the week and the celebration with them in our own words and do not want to spoil the surprise but we will carefully be leading up to the idea that “Katie” the witch might be visiting us this week and we will be making her a pumpkin pie on Tuesday in hopes she will come for it. Parents will not be able to be inside for the celebration, but I’ll try and video tape it. I tried last year and failed, but if it works this year, I’ll try and turn it into one you can see. When you bring your child to school Friday morning for the party, you will take their shoes off and send them into the main house, where a teacher will be waiting and reading stories until we all go together in the classroom. Once you drop your child off, you can go peek in the classroom where the tent is if you like.
I’ll take photos that morning for you. PLEASE do not tell your child that there is a witch inside or anything else, and do not let your child peek into the classroom.

If you feel your child is not going to be comfortable with the celebration, please wait out front or in your car in case we need to bring your child to you. We want the witches experience to be great for all of the children, so if one is scared and needs to leave we want to be able to hand the child off quickly so that the others can continue to enjoy it and the child who is upset does not have to stay.

Please remember the costume guidelines. FYI, i f your child comes in a costume that is large, we will likely have to remove the large parts to all be able to join in the tent. No face coverings or face make up, no media or scary images on fabrics and no play weapons of any kind.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

A big thank you to Mateo and his family for the lovely pink roses! We also want to welcome Sedona and Jack to our school. Sedona is attending five days a week and Jack is attending two days a week. Please give them a warm welcome to the West Coast and Morning Song school.

The Enormous Turnip has turned into a play. Here the children are working so beautifully together in making the story come to life. In the beginning they are singing with our bells over head to begin our play. It takes all to pull together to harvest the enormous turnip. Here is the end scene where the turnip is in a large pot and all are enjoying the feast together.

Enormous Turnip Play

The back garden is almost complete. It is looking great! Rick is doing such a wonderful job. We thank him for all of the hours and hard work he is putting into it.  The children have started playing in the new play area and are all really enjoying it.

The back garden has transformed into a wonderful setting that is fostering the children’s imagination. They were very busy taking magical boat rides on the beautiful river that leads to the ocean. Here  they are fishing, crabbing, seeing sharks, hiding, steering to miss a whale, and and then they stop the boat to cross the bridge to go on yet another adventure.

Outdoor Play

Nature Day was also full of adventure. The girls are playing a jumping game together with a long branch, the boys looking for stones in the gnomes home (laying on their tummies). Alana and Matteo are standing on a large tree shaking the branches and singing our “Shake shake shake the Apple Tree” song.

Nature Day

Here the children are hard at work and concentrating on their stories that they were drawing.

Coloring Time

Soup day was a yummy success. We made sweet butternut squash. Thank you for all of your contributions.

Lastly a big thank you to all who shopped at Sloat Gardens in supporting our school. We will receive a gift card and  we hope you will join us again next month for our November “Growing Up Green” week, November 5-15, 2010 at any Sloat Garden Center. If you need another coupon, let Linda know.

Have a wonderful week. Until next time!