If you’d like to read more about the importance of imagination and the results of its decline in recent years in areas as diverse as national security, economic security, and the development of new patents, this article is excellent:

http://www.rakemag.com/2007/10/death-and-life-american-imagination/

 Still more evidence from the scientific community  that the wisdom of Waldorf is right on target. When engaged in what looks like child’s play, preschoolers are actually behaving like scientists, according to a new report in the journal Science: forming hypotheses, running experiments, calculating probabilities and deciphering causal relationships about the world.  Read the full article here.

Bring children ages 2 to 5 to experience a Waldorf preschool classroom. Children and parents will start the morning together with bread making. Children will then engage in free play, story time and circle as parents tour the school, learn more about Waldorf education and talk with other parents. Refreshments will be served.

When: Friday, April 1 , 12:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Where: Water’s Edge Waldorf School, 150 W. Bonner Rd., Wauconda, IL 60084
Please register: (847)526-1372

Thank you for your kind words, hugs, and positive expressions of what our school year together has meant for your child and family. Your gratitude is such a gift for me as is the love I feel from your children. That is my greatest reward for this work I do. Thanks to all who donated to the Faculty Education Fund in honor of Ms. Nicole and me. The teachers in our school work tirelessly and for very modest pay. This fund helps to see that anyone wishing to attend training and professional development workshops has funds available for this. This gift gives right back to our school and children!

Our departing kindergarten students have gifted us with new placemats for the classroom and a new carpet sweeper. Thanks to the Peterson, Stokes, DePue-Renollet, and Howard families for this.

I wish you all a wonderful summer full of much joy and adventure. I’ll do my best to rest and replenish so I can return to your children in the fall with fresh energy and enthusiasm for another year!

In closing, I share the closing words of our morning circle:

“The Earth is firm beneath my feet. The sun shines bright above,
And here I stand so straight and strong. All things to know and love.”

Good-bye.

Blessings,
Donna Brooks

Thank you all for your support this school year. Our kindergarten children have crossed the bridge and are excited about their adventures into first grade for next year. The children staying in our garden are also very full of love and joy right not. I’ve been hugged and kissed so much this past week. It’s like we’re all getting our fill before a summer apart. But rest assured we’ll come together this summer. My hope is to have a forest preserve picnic for our families returning next year and our incoming families and students. I’ll keep you posted as to the date and location of this play, play, play date.

We bid farewell to our students going to first grade, and we also bid farewell to two students who’ve been in our garden the past two years. One student will join her big brother and sister at their charter school at Prairie Crossing. I will miss their family very much. The parents brought their oldest daughter to our school back when I first began teaching here. Fond memories from long ago that lead up to beholding their young daughter’s beautiful smile and singing now. Another family is moving this summer, so today I washed their daughter’s feet for the last time in our lavender bath in Extended Day. My how those feet have grown since she was three! I will miss her very much, but we are promised a visit whenever they return to Illinois! Best wishes to both families. You are in our hearts.

Children will be taking home bags with all their school belongings on Thursday and Friday. Be sure to pick these up this week and check our lost and found for any other items to go home.

Additionally, I will have some tending, cleaning and ironing projects for any motivated summer workers!! Come pick up a bag to tend, wash, and/or iron and return some time during June and July. I’ll be giving away bags tomorrow and on Friday after the picnic. Oh yeh!!! Deep cleaning will happen in August, so let me know if you’re inspired for this when the time comes. All this is our effort to create and keep a clean, beautiful, safe space for these children. This is our home away from home.
Please extend a thank you to Kristin DePue, who served as our Room Parent this year. She has been a great support to the teachers and to our program, and I appreciate all her efforts. Anyone interested in taking on this PTO function for next year, please let me know.

Have a wonderful summer vacation! Breathe out!!

Warmly,
Donna Brooks

Next week concludes our time together. Please make sure to double check your child’s bag and belongings going home. If you can send in a paper shopping bag on Monday or Tuesday, that will help us with our packing. There will be laundry needs and ironing projects sent home for summer cleaning. Let me know if you’ll take a bundle! Thanks!

A special visitor came to our room on Wednesday to observe the work we do. Pat Grosso, a certified HANDLE practitioner and occupational therapist, visited our class to reconnect with Waldorf education and our school. Her now grown children attended school at Four Winds Waldorf School. She was very pleased with her visit and reaffirmed the good work we are doing…how good it is for children’s healthy development. She also reiterated the value of children spending time and growing up in the early childhood program. Like Pia Antonetti, who works with children from our school, Pat Grosso is an excellent resource for children needing extra support (especially before going into the grades) with attention, sensory processing, coordination/balance, and other work needed for children who may have neurodevelopmental differences. If you have any questions about this, feel welcomed to speak with me more.

Next week we’ll have our own classroom ceremony to bid farewell to our friends “crossing the bridge” and going on to first grade next year. This journey is never to be rushed, for if one is not fully ready now, it will often show more and more with progression through the grades. Though a child is “of age,” this does not always mean ready. With this I am grateful for the one family’s decision, in concert with me, to keep their child in our garden for another year. This student just came to us in January, and we considered this carefully, as I will with any child. We do what we should always do ~ that which is best for the child. So our ceremony on Wednesday will be a send off to five children leaving the garden. This ceremony is for parents and grandparents of these children only, along with our children who attend class on Wednesday. In the fall, they’ll be welcomed in a Rose Ceremony into the grades.

Next Week:

Kindergarten Ceremony ~ Wednesday, June 3, 11:30 a.m.

Where Do the Children Play? ~ Movie screening and panel discussion Thursday, June 4, 7:00 p.m.

Friday, June 5, School Picnic ~ Pizza and potluck, 12:30.

I’m actually enjoying working with the energy of these children during these final days of school. It is a lesson in adaptation and flexibility! We have to meet them where they are!

Warmly,
Donna Brooks

Miss Nicole and I are continuing the marionette puppet show of “Queen Bee” we shared at the May Faire. If you missed it that day, know that your child will have several opportunities to receive this story. I know some were unable to enter once the story was begun at the faire, and this may have felt hurtful or frustrating. These puppet shows require a good deal of focus on the part of the teachers, and the children are “dreaming into it.” If we have people entering late or disruptions, it interrupts this flow and can distract the focus and dreamy quality of the experience. Whenever story time or circle time has begun, the ideal would be to not interrupt. I appreciate your timeliness and consideration of this. Thanks for understanding.

Our kindergarten children have been having some adventures. They’ve finished the basic form of their puppets and next week we’ll embellish them with capes, crowns, and whatever else is desired. Then they’ll get a chance to play with their creations. From that comes a story. The six year olds also visited Mrs. Bowmen’s classroom twice this week for a first grade experience. We in turn invited the first grade class to come see our “Queen Bee” puppet show.

Home visits: Families of six year old/turning six next year children…please contact me about a time in the coming weeks and into summer when I might visit your home. I’d like to visit the homes of all my incoming kindergarten children within the next month. Thanks.

Last call for letters of interest, resumes, and applications for candidates interested in our assistant positions. We are setting up times for applicants to visit the classrooms/observe and interview in the next two weeks. Any questions? Just call my cell phone number (listed in the Handbook).

Enjoy the long weekend!

Warmly,
Donna Brooks

(click image to view larger)

Early Childhood Teacher Donna Brooks and Teacher’s Assistant Nicole Griffith perform the May Faire puppet show in the Sunflower Garden classroom. The beautiful story was featured twice during the event and was enjoyed by both children and parents alike.

We celebrated another student’s sixth birthday on Thursday. Such celebration. We now have six six year- olds in our classroom! These six year-olds are working on their puppets for our story we’ll share at the Kindergarten Ceremony of June 3. They are focused on this work and then love to fly away and play! In the coming week, the six year-olds will visit Mrs. Bowman’s first grade class for a short morning lesson. This will be a “taste of first grade.”

Included below, please find the nature tale I recently told called “Spring Treasure Chests.” I will continue to intersperse this along with the marionette puppet show of “Queen Bee” that Ms. Nicole and I are sharing with the children.

Snow, sleet, rain and sun! Please have a light jacket and some sort of hat to protect the head, eyes and face from sun exposure. Please send in labeled hats and water bottles so we can all enjoy our outside play on these sunny days.

Summer medical appointments: Kindergarten students for next year need documentation of a recent physical, dental exam, and eye exam. The physical/well-child check up and dental appointments are important for all children in our program. I encourage you to schedule these appointments soon, as I know they get filled up quickly in the summer months.

Home visits: I would like to take up this important home/school connection with my students for next year. The home visit is not a “Waldorf Home Checklist!” but a way to better connect with you and your child, learn of the play spaces your child enjoys, and get a better sense of home in the life of your child. Thanks for considering this.

Warmly,
Donna Brooks

Spring Treasure Chests

One morning in early spring little Bobby got out of bed on the wrong side. He spoke crossly to his mother and wouldn’t hurry putting on his clothes. When he went down to breakfast, he spilled his milk and didn’t bother to help clean it up. Then he didn’t finish his oatmeal. By the time he went out in the garden to play, he was feeling very naughty indeed. When his mother called out, “Don’t go away from the house,” he only answered, “Ugh!” As soon as his mother closed the door, Bobby ran right down the road and into the wood!

The wood was very pretty in its spring clothes; the trees were covered in little buds, and some had pale green leaves on them. The birds were singing and building their nests. On the ground the flowers grew in different colored patches, white and pink and yellow and purple. But Bobby wasn’t paying attention to all these lovely things, he was looking for mischief!

Soon he saw a pair of big eyes looking at him from under a bush and he ran to grab the little brown rabbit that was sitting there. But Bunny didn’t wait for him. He was off in a flash, his tiny white bunch of a tail in the air. After him ran Bobby, but fast as he ran, Bunny hopped faster. Because Bobby wasn’t looking where he was going, the first thing you know…”Squish!”…he had stepped into a muddy wet ground up to his ankles! Of course, Bunny leaped lightly over the marshy ground and disappeared.

Bobby was so cross in his wet, squishy shoes that he began kicking at the queer little green and brown plants that were growing all around…they looked like funny little houses with curved roofs. Sure enough, they were houses, for suddenly small, pale faces looked out and small voices cried, “Who is spoiling our houses?” One of the little woodland sprites, in a dress like pale-blue water, came out and called, “Gnomes, Gnomes! Come and help us!”

Bobby felt pretty frightened when he heard the quick pattering of feet and saw a procession of little brown gnomes come running. They said never a word, but climbed up on Bobby and tied his two hands together. Then they pulled him after them into a dark hole in the earth. They dragged Bobby along a dark passage to a big, stony room where the King of the Gnomes sat on a high rock with a gold crown on his head. The other gnomes held lanterns to light Bobby. The King of the Gnomes looked at him and said, “Gnomes, what wrong has this Human Being done?”

“He has done three wrongs, your majesty,” answered the gnomes. “First, he came into our beautiful wood with a cross look on his face and unkind feelings in his heart. Second, he chased a little rabbit who was doing him no harm. Third, he kicked at the little shoots and plants and disturbed the homes of the woodland sprites. What shall be done with him?”

Bobby was too frightened to move as he listened to the Gnome King answer.

“He shall be kept a prisoner in a hollow tree until he answers three riddles. He must tell me what three treasure chests are found in the wood in the springtime.”

Then the gnomes took Bobby to a hollow tree and left him there to think. They brought him food and drink, and every day they asked for the answers to the riddles. When Bobby could not answer them, they took him for a walk through the dark passages underground. Bobby saw the little gnomes digging many colored jewels from the earth and gold and silver, but he saw no chests for all these treasures.

Then he saw the little gnomes feeding broth to the roots underground and to the little seed children who had not yet cracked open and stretched up to the world above. Suddenly Bobby knew one answer to riddle. “The Seed Children are treasure chests!” he shouted. Then the little gnomes all clapped their hands and took him to the Gnome King who spoke quite kindly to Bobby. “Human Being, you are learning some of our wisdom. You may go above the earth for your walk now.”

So now Bobby walked in the wood and it seemed very beautiful to him after the dark passages underground. He looked everywhere for more treasure chests. At last one day he saw a little silver-gray chrysalis bed. Out of the end of it crept a butterfly that put on bright and lovely colors before his eyes. Bobby cried to the gnomes, “The chrysalis is a treasure chest too, for butterflies awaken from them. They are like many-colored jewels!”

Then the gnomes clapped their hands and took him to the King who said, “Human Being, you are learning fast. Soon you will be wise enough to go free.”

Now Bobby enjoyed his walks in the wood for he was looking for treasures and their chests. One time as he was searching, he heard a little bird singing and singing on a branch overhead and he looked up to see why he was so happy. There, close by on the branch, Bobby saw a little brown nest, and he knew there were eggs in it. That was why the bird sang. Bobby had grown so wise that he knew the third answer to the riddle.

“I know! I know!” shouted Bobby, “the rest of the riddle. A bird’s egg is a treasure chest because the baby bird is inside!”

And the gnomes took him quickly to the Gnome King who said, “Human Being, you have learned your lesson well. You are free!”

The gnomes took Bobby home, and he told his mother all his adventures. Whenever he went into the wood he found treasures because of his new wisdom, and he always went into the wood with a kind look on his face and kindness in his heart.

From: Nature Stories by Margaret Peckham, Mercury Press, 1982, pg. 18-21
Slightly adapted/edited by Donna Brooks

It mentions a study of New York and Los Angeles kindergartens spending 2-3 hours per day on math/reading instruction and testing.

How different our Waldorf kindergarten is…

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