The Natural Child Learning Community

The Arrival of Autumn

Autumn's Arrival

Autumn has come to the country and town.

Wearing its garments of golden and brown.

Apples she brings us so round and so red. 

Brings us our corn that we bake our bread. 

                                    J. Aulie

These Autumn days...so brief and so magical in Texas. After months and months of heat, it seems we are all enjoying a much needed deep breathe of relief. Autumn, for so many of us, is a nostalgic time of the year. More than any other season, this one conjures so many memories of childhood for me. Perhaps this has to do with the olfactory experience surrounding the season. In the fall, it seems the whole world is saturated with the wonderful aroma of wood burning, spices simering, and apples and pumpkins cooking in some sort of fashion. It is a season that lends itself to so many wonderful cooking ingredients that make their way into our kitchens, our hearts, and our memories. 

In fact, I always wonder which moments of childhood get "remembered".  Will any of the following moments be remembered? 

To welcome Autumn, the children made delicious apple sauce and apple crumble.

We removed Indian corn kernals from the cob and then threaded the kernals into beautiful necklaces. 

These sensory experiences are so thoroughly enjoyed by the children. Nearly everyone finds themself engrossed in the process of the work and happy and satisfied by the end product - however it turns out!

The Garden

A few weeks ago, the children cleaned out the playground garden bed, turned the soil, added more soil, shoveled some into our containers, and then finally planted some winter vegetables and marigolds. It was a lot of work and they were incredibly proud of their efforts! Our chard and lettuce is thriving and ready to harvest right now! We are also growing brocolli and cabbage. We enjoy watering the plants and observing their growth and change each day during our outdoor playtime.  

Our Halloween Party    

I think the children had lots of Halloween fun on the day of our party. There were so many wonderful costumes: Rupunzel, a witch, a shark, a skeleton, Peter Rabbit, Cleopatra, a princess, Dorothy, a mermaid, a butterfly, and a super hero! In the week approaching the party, the children and I had a wonderful time learning a few very fun Halloween songs, carving our pumkin,  and decorting our room with paper chains. 

Our Autumn days have been filled with so much love for the natural world. We're looking forward to celebrating the rest of the season with more nature crafts and cooking experiences!  

 

 

 

Grace and Courtesy

Our first month of school is already past us. I usually like to think of September as a settling in month. One in which the main focus is learning how to live peacefully amongst our friends. During this time, we welcome our new friends to the community. For them, there are so many new ways in which they must learn how to go about their mornings. 

Since the children have the opportunity to choose their own activities, learning to properly respect materials and friends becomes key to maintaining a peaceful and functional community. In our community, one way in which we go about introducing the parameters to our freedom of choice is through grace and courtesy lessons. 

Grace and courtesy lessons are mini skits that the children and adults act out. The skits usually revolve around a classroom guideline that the community needs to pay more attention to. The skits are fun because we get to engage in role play. For instance, a child might get to pretend to be me or another younger child.  She may get to "teach" her friends the correct way to do something, thereby empowering her. The skits sometimes get silly and exaggerated and are just plain fun for everyone involved. 

The following are some of the lessons we've focused on this month:

• how to observe someone who is working.
• how to walk around a mat. 
• how to carry a chair across the room.
• how to ask for help. 
• how to initiate a conversation with a friend or teacher. 

If you ask your child about the way we do some of these things at school, I bet they will be specific about the process to which any of these movements or communications occur at The Natural Child. With each guideline and (lesson that accompanies it) there is a logical need for it to maintain a respectful and cooperative community. For instance, we walk around mats because children place their work on their mats. The mat defines their work space, much like tables do. Since we respect each other's work and the materials, our feet should always walk on the floor and around our mats. 

Another example that we are always trying to be mindful of is not interrupting someone when they are concentrating on a task or when they are speaking. One way that children are introduced to new activities and materials is by receiving a lesson from an adult. This lesson is very special. It is the moment in which the adult links the child to the material or activity so that the child may fully explore the concepts attached to the material. Part of the adult's work is to model: to model joy, to model concentration, and to model intent of the work. Therefore, through grace and courtesy lessons, the children learn what to do if they need help and their teacher is busy giving a lesson. We learn how to stop and think, to seek help from another child who may be able to assist, or to ask the other available adult for help. 

Though these lessons may seem trivial they are indeed life lessons that follow the child to adulthood and beyond. Learning patience, thinking beyond immediate wants and needs, and becoming thoughtful in both actions and words, are daily lessons to mindful living for us all.  

We'll continue to have grace and courtesy lessons on a variety of "issues" that arise in our community throughout the year. And between them, we'll be doing a lot of living, a lot of loving, and a lot of learning about each other and the world around us.  

Happy Autumn to all of you!  

The following photos are off topic but oh so fun to look at. Bread days at The Natural Child are fun days for all!

 

It feels really wonderful to be back at The Natural Child. I am especially delighted to have so many old friends returning this year. I am always humbled by this precious opportunity I have to nurture little ones while they grow up under my watchful eye. Several of the returning children started out at The Natural Child as toddlers - itty bitty two year olds! Oh my, how I remember their younger versions. So alike in so many ways, but so different in ways we can never really anticipate them to be. My own daughter accompanied me on this journey as a wee infant. For the first two years of The Natural Child, she was the youngest of the group.  And now, she blends in with the other children. No longer a babe, but a little girl, eager to help those younger than she.  

During these first several weeks as our new children gradually join in with us, our energies will be focused on becoming resettled as a community. We are so busy - getting reacquainted with one another and getting to know each other.  It is a true joy to witness the comraderie of our little community already forming. The older children are such wonderful role models to youngest ones. They have so much knowledge that they are eager to share with the little ones. The older children really do play a pivotal role in guiding the younger children to become confident and at ease in their new environment. The younger children look up to these older ones with great admiration, knowing one day soon, they'll be as big and as capable as they are now.  Vice versa, the older ones remember all too well what the first time away from home felt like.  These two groups "get each other" in a way that an adult cannot fully.  

Soon, we will all settle into our new rhythm with our new friends. Similar to the arrival of a baby sibling, our family will quickly forget or cling to the life that was before. Only the present will matter. Our new normal has arrived!  

Welcome all to another joyous year at The Natural Child Learning Community.  

With gratitude and warmth,

~Nichole

 

 
The year ended last Thursday at The Natural Child. It was bittersweet, as always.  Older children moving on. Little ones returning - yet teetering quite closely to older child status. Thinking about the future when new children, whom I've known since their own babyhood, join us to share their days and growth with us. I'm constantly reminded through my work with little ones, that this world is not static. Time, moments, life - all are in constant motion, moving forwards ~ away from now. 

It's been a wonderful year. I'm so entirely content with the little community that we have created here. But summer is upon us and a new, even slower rhythm, wedges itself upon our days now. For the next few months, the long, hot summer days will be spent savoring moments home with my little one (who just so happens to be growing up ever so quickly).  Doing lots of nothing. Being barefoot. Playing in water. Finding shade. Sipping ice water. Tickling ticklish spots. Swings in hammock. Sharing backyard with chickens. 

Yet, the endless days of summer will, as they have always done before, inevitably and slowly, come to a close, to give way to a new school year come this September. And already, I'm picturing those future days and smiling...For now, I've got some summery slowness to enjoy.  

You'll find me back in this space in September.  

Ah, but wait...I just had to include this before signing off.  There we were.  All together. 2010-2011. 

 

drip, drop, drip, drop..

Drip, drop, drip, drop.

Rain is falling down.

Drip, drop, drip, drop.

Splashing all around. 

Let's put on our rain boots, our rain coat, and our hats.

And jump into the puddle with a splish, splash, splash.  

The Mud Kitchen

The children have been so busy, working away, creating, sharing, coordinating, and cooking in the mud kitchen. There's a busy hum around the playground these days and lots of impromptu birthday parties, songs, and blowing out the candles.  What sweetness, growth, and delight come from the simplest of "toys".

 

 

Wool wonder.

Last month, the children and I enjoyed the Elsa Beskow classic Pelle's New Suit. It's a delightful story about a little boy who needs a new wool jacket. The story outlines the steps of how the wool of his sheep is transformed into a product that will be used to make a jacket.  

To bring the experience and characters of the book to life, a basket of raw wool was available on the shelf for the children to choose to card as they felt inclined. This activity proved to be very soothing and rhythmic for the children. It seemed like for most of the month of April, a little one was always situated on the floor with a basket of wool in front of her and two carding brushes - just brushing away, trying to create little puffs of wool out of the thick, matted one. 

After the children had experience carding wool and felting it into Easter eggs, we welcomed a sweet spinner who volunteered her time to demonstrate to the children how roves of wool (carded wool) is then turned into yarn. What an amazing demonstration it was!  It was so nice to hear the gentle, soft sound of a spinning wheel in our very own room!

The children were amazed, wanting to get up close, to touch and to feel the spinning wheel and to feel the softness of the luxurious wool.

Sherry also demonstrated a sweater which she was in the process of knitting.

Sherry left us all feeling so grateful for the wonderful contribution of sharing her time and passion with us.  

Easter at The Natural Child

April was such a bright and cheerful month. Full of laughter and song, outdoor play and Easter preparations.  

This year, we prepared our Easter baskets two weeks in advance. Each child planted wheat grass in their basket. We watered it each day and watched it grow - very quickly! Simply amazing - so much more fun than stuffing the baskets with artificial grass.  

We felted little wool eggs to decorate our baskets. 

We dyed our hard boiled eggs by using beets, blueberries and tumeric root powder. 

Then finally, at last, we went a hunting for eggs hidden by the Easter bunny herself.  

What a sweet, sweet time spring is!

Mud Kitchens

The little ones have been so avidly involved in their play these days. So much creativity happens when their hands get immersed in sand, gravel, soil, grass, water, or preferably all of the above mixed!  

I really want to set up an official mud kitchen for the playground. Of course, not much is needed. In fact, the fewer materials, the better - it seems is the key these days.  

Here's some pretty inspiring images I've found around the internet lately. All put together with bits and scraps found here and there and around the home. 

Source: pepperpaints.com via Nichole on Pinterest

 

Source: freeplaynetwork.org.uk via Nichole on Pinterest

 

Source: mamauk.typepad.com via Nichole on Pinterest

 

Source: pre-kteacher.tumblr.com via Nichole on Pinterest

 

Source: None via Hannah on Pinterest

 

Source: rhythmofthehome.com via Hannah on Pinterest

 

I'm officially gathering and collecting!  

The Country Bunny

With Easter nearly upon us, the children and I have had so much fun these days reading stories about rabbits - both Easter rabbits and not.  

But one of our absolute favorite tales has been the story of The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes. Oh my, what a sweet gem of a story this one is.  

It's quite a long read. But it's so good. It's about a little, brown, girl bunny who dreams of one day becoming one of the five esteemed Easter Bunnies. Her dream gets diverted once she gets married and has 21 bunnies! At first these babies keep her busy, but as they get older and they are no longer babies - but little children, she teaches them to sweep, make the bed, paint beautiful art for the walls, wash the laundry and dishes, cook and bake, sing and dance and entertain one another, etc.  Everyone has a role. Everyone has a gift - something to contribute to the community.

Oh yes, it's easy to see why we all have adored this book...

The story continues and I won't spoil it for you. But because of her kind and wise ways with her little ones, she gets another chance at making her dream come true.  

What a great Easter basket gift this book would be!