Berkshire Country Day School - Clay, secrets, apples, peace!

Dear Families,

It was lovely to have the chance to meet with so many of you last week, talk about curriculum, share hopes and dreams for this group of children and get to know one another better! Many of you mentioned noticing a change in your children already – a sense of greater confidence that comes from having a place of one’s own. I, too, have been thrilled to see the childrens’ joy as we come into circle or story time and witness their knowledge of the routine and ability to now make requests for favorite songs, games and stories.

Hopes and dreams for the year ahead.

We began the week by painting our clay creations. We noticed how hard the clay in the air had become and how squishy, in contrast, the clay was in our small, “muddy pond.” We have been reading, In the Small, Small Pond and thinking about what happens underneath the water, in the secret places we can’t see from the outside.

“I painted my cake red!”

The idea of a secret, unseen world continues to be a fascinating concept. The children were happy to paint on the ‘secret messages’ you left and find the words and pictures revealed. These notes are hanging with our family pictures. Please bring in more pictures to add to this wall. We refer to it daily and it seems to be a great source of comfort and pride for everyone.

Secret message revealed!

We have also continued to play our game, “Doggy, doggy, who stole your bone…” When the bone disappears we know it still secretly exists and everyone laughs and applauds when the dog finally finds it again. Everyone is getting so good at keeping secrets and following the complex rules of this game.

Other miraculous secrets: the star shaped hiding place of an apple’s seeds and the shape around the star that Isabelle noticed looked like a flower.

The apple’s star!

Also, the hickory nuts littering the forest trails hiding inside their thick, waxy green husks.

Hickory husk and hickory nut.

To prepare for the International Day of Peace celebration we lay on the floor and listened to ourselves breathing, felt our hearts beating and practiced being still and peaceful as we listened to the humming of the singing bowl. We thought of peaceful moments in life and put these peaceful thoughts into our peace flags. As they float in the breeze above our heads we hope the peaceful thoughts flow out from our creations.

Beautiful peace flag being hung out to dry.

Peace is:

“Is peace to go to the zoo with mommy and daddy.” “Being with my mommy.” “”When I’m in Nova Scotia!” “At Grammy’s house.” “I want to be with Mommy and Daddy and Julian.”

I was very proud of our class for all their work learning the song, We Shall Overcome, that we practiced with the Pre-K and kindergarten and for being brave enough to stand in front of the whole school to sing.

Our trip to Windy Hill was wonderful, too! We have been singing The Apple Picker’s Reel for the past couple weeks and it was great to see real apple pickers with their special ‘pick-sacks’ and ladders. We learned how to carefully harvest apples and saw the huge machine for making cider. Thank you to Jon, Isabelle and Julian for accompanying us on our first field trip! We will use our half bushel in all kinds of interesting projects next week!