SHOW AND TELL
Bring a thing that could be magical.
Topic: Faerie Tales
It’s okay to be silly sometimes.
The value is joy, which we can capture by appreciating sensations and verbalizing goodness.
For cooking, we’ll make pretzels in lots of different shapes.
Outside we’ll make bubbles in different shapes.
The songs we’ll be singing are Puff the Magic Dragon, Zippity-do-dah, Where is Thumbkin?, Ain’t It Great to Be Crazy?, and Do Your Ears Hang Low?
For creative dramatics we’ll visit with our imaginary friends.
Our art activities are snouts, Pinocchio, three pigs’ houses, Jack and the beanstalk, and the emperor’s new clothes.
For motor development, we’ll work on stamina by pretending to be bubbles. For bilaterality, we’ll play food chain, golf, wishing well, and have some sack races.
TEACHING JOY
The mother I was talking to was frantic. Her fifteen-year-old daughter was threatening to commit suicide. It’s a worst nightmare, and we seem helpless in the face of it. Drugs is another one of those issues. We’re not there yet with our preschoolers, but it could easily come into our lives if we’re not pro-active about it. The antidote? It’s joy. Joy packed down and overflowing in our lives and in the lives of our children.
That answer comes easily, but how do we get joy – and then how do we teach it? Cat Thompson is a life coach at Emotional Technologies. She says that joy is different from pleasures such as a perfectly ripe peach or a kiss from a loved one, and different from happiness that comes when wishes are fulfilled, when our standards are met, or when we find ourselves in a good place. Joy is about what we have chosen, pursued, defended, and claimed for ourselves. She goes on to say, “By nature, it [joy] is the outcome of an emotional cycle that begins with feeling a deep longing, imagining all the possibilities that could fill it, experimenting and selecting from among those choices, committing to the ones that feel most right and then following—directing the full force of our energy in the pursuit of the choices that best express our deepest-held value and priorities and that best extend our most valuable gifts. Finding joy is in essence a creative act, one filled with a certain amount of mystery and a great deal of discovery. As a rule, it requires courage, an open mind, and a willingness to explore some of our own darkest corners.”
Finding our own joy can be a challenge. We get so bogged down in our days that we roll past five years, ten years, and then realize we really didn’t notice. And the joy has drained out. We forgot to define what our deepest values were; we forgot to find our passion. Today is where we realize exactly what is right and wrong for us, where we learn how to set boundaries between our own priorities and other peoples’ expectations, where we eliminate distractions and detours and compromises, and instead direct our energy straight toward the thing most meant for us; our joy.
This is what we want to teach our children so they will have the sense of victory and celebration when they’re a teenager or a young adult. It’s easy with little children with their enthusiasm and sense of wonder, but we have to start now, everyday, with full commitment to understand that joy. It’s a lot of hard work, and it requires major investments of time and talking and staying in touch with our family and being grateful. Finding joy—and most critically, teaching our children to also have joy—is an essential part of successful parenting.
In General
April Fool’s Day – Sadly, this day is falling on a Saturday this year, but not to be deterred, we’re going to do Crazy Day anyway! Please make a note that we’re going to be a little bit crazy on Friday, March 31. Maybe crazy clothes – or a crazy hat – or crazy socks. It’s the one week of the year we do imaginary with faerie tales, so you might want to focus on imaginary that week with your child.
Garden Project - We would like to extend the invitation to all parents to volunteer for the Gardening Project on March 31st between 9:30-11:00. Please email mmgsparentgroup@gmail.com give your contact information, get on the list and to get more information.
Classroom News
Asher one of the newest additions to the infant class, not walking yet; he pulls himself up the infant stair case and sits at the top observing his classmates but it’s when the toddler are outside that really captures his attention he smiles as he looks out the window. Gaspard enjoys the nesting boxes, he gets excited as he turns each box over and begins stacking them, after he admires his work he put the boxes back in their nesting position and puts it back on the shelf. Garance joyfully sat down to do the bead stringing work there were a lot of beads and the sting was long, Garance was focused and when all the beads were used up he proudly held up the long strand he made. Control of the body takes some effort and walking on the line helps promote just that. That’s just one reason why you see the white line on the carpet. The Kindergarteners are now reading “first readers” This is a good time to encourage reading everywhere you go.
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