All We Need is Love!

"Where there is love, there is life,"
​Mahatma Gandhi

In February we love to especially highlight emotional intelligence and open our hearts to even more LOVE!

​A great way to learn about different feelings, learn new tools to respond to big emotions, and jump back in the stream of love is through inspiring children's books - here are some of our favorites:

How Full Is You Bucket is a great read to have at home. We all have invisible buckets that get filled by kindness. love, sharing, joy; but also get tipped by bullying, mean words, and unkind actions. We read this book many times throughout the month and the kids absolutely loved it. We started checking in if our actions were filling or tipping other's buckets. If you hear your kid ask "Are you being a bucket tipper?" or "a bucking filler" this is where they got it from! We're all working on keeping each other's buckets full!

Dr Daniel Seigel's Hand- Brain Model

We have been teaching the kids how our brains work when we're "triggered" with this awesome hand brain model. If something happens that makes us mad, we "flip our lid" or "go offline". When we're off line we are not using our thinking brain, instead, our amygdala (and emotions) is in control. This model is a great way to explain this to children and asking them "Have you flipped your lid? How can you put your lid back on? I'm here to help you" while showing them the hand gesture can be really helpful.

We learned some rapid resets for when we "flip our lid". This can be used when kids are beginning to show us they are leaving their resiliency zone and either shutting down or acting out. Some of these resets are:
​

1. Drink a sip of water, ask them if the water is too cold or too hot to get them to tune into how it feels in their body. 
2. Push against a wall. Ask them to try and move the wall! This gets them back into their body.
3. Give them some heavy lifting. Can they move this big stack of books to the other side of the room for you? Can they push this heavy and loaded wheel barrel over to where you need it dumped?
4. "Trick" their brains into casing their surroundings and realizing they are safe. Our brains cannot go into survival mode and also know we are safe. Ask them to find all the orange objects in the room, or to see how many trees or flowers they can count. Anything that helps them look around them to know there is no real threat. 
5. Practice our breath work skills! They are loving the Balloon Breath right now!

Balloon Breath

Take a long deep breath in, then slowly let it out with a fun balloon sound!

We highly recommend Dr Daniel Seigel's "The Whole-Brain Child".

We Love Art!

The kids were asked to think about the word love and how it felt in their bodies to love. They sat with that feeling of love and expressed it through art. 

In the spirit of love, everyone made and decorated a heart for a friend or family member. They wrote something they love about the person on the heart and gifted it to them. 

Valentine's Crafts

We Love the Trees! 

Painting rocks to surround our tress in love.

We Love Math and Language!

Math and art! Learning about symmetry! The kids got paper folded with a half a heart drawn on it- they guessed what shape would be made once they cut it out and have two halves together. Then they painted on side and folded it over, squished it together, and determined if it was symmetrical! 

We looked to see what kinds of things we could find in nature that were symmetrical. You and your kids can take a nature walk (bring a clip board, paper, and pen!) and continue to explore symmetry at home! What can you find that has symmetry? Can they draw what they find on a piece of paper? If you cut or fold the paper in half is it symmetrical? 

Writing names with playdough

Practicing shape building and creating interesting new language to name our shapes!

---

Letter tracing 

"I Like Myself" Books!

Making Teacher Anna cards, We love and miss you Anna!

Our dear Teacher Anna was in a car accident and fractured her cervical vertebrae. If you have not had a chance to yet, please consider donating to her fundraiser to support her in this time of healing:
​https://gofund.me/9a49f204

We Love the Magic of Science!

I wonder happens when we put an egg in a cup of vinegar?
​What is your hypothesis?

The shell dissolves!

Passing the egg around after it sat in vinegar for 24 hours

"I can see the baby chick!"

We Love the Physics of Fort Building!

How many drops of water will fit on a penny?

Counting is more interesting when exploring surface tension and the magical properties of water!

We Love Chemistry!

Circle Time

Wow, these kids have been begging for our daily meditations every circle time. They really get into it and calm their bodies (mostly!). Continuing with meditation and learning to ground our bodies through breath and clearing the mind. 

This month we took lots of big love breaths! The kids gathered all their love up on the inhale and blew it out to the world or to someone they love on the exhale.

​We Love Yoga!

Yoga teacher training - everyone gets to take turns leading a yoga pose!

​Love Vibrations

Everyone got to practice with learning how to gently use the singing bowl! We love to incorporate the singing bowl before meditation time.

Affirmation Yoga!

We pulled affirmation cards from our affirmation deck, read them and made up yoga poses to go with the affirmation.

Social-Emotional Intelligence

We read through the Slumberkins book of Feelings and matched the emotion.

Playdough faces of emotions / expressions

Card game matching the expression with the scene on the card

Thank You Lunch Bunch Helpers!

Guacamole Ole! 

We Love Cinnamon!

Tulsi Cinnamon Rose Tea party! Cinnamon is great for the immune system, so we're boosting up!

---

Cinnamon Apples

One of the kids favorite treats is to cover apple slices with cinnamon and shredded coconut and then shake it up in a bag to get all the apples coated. Great idea for a travel snack so your apples don't get all brown :)

Kindness Party!

This full moon our kindness jar was overflowing, time for another Kindness Party!

Moon Treat Recipe

Makes 7-10 balls 
Ingredients:
- 1-2 cups un-popped popcorn
- 1 cup butter
- 1 1/2 cup honey
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 4 tsp corn starch

Directions:

• Pop the popcorn and set aside. In a medium saucepan, melt butter, honey, and corn starch powder together over medium heat. Stir constantly.
• Let mixture come to a boil while stirring occasionally until thick, about 5 min. Remove from heat.
• Add vanilla to honey mixture and stir together.
• Pour the honey mixture over the popcorn, making sure to cover every piece. 
• Allow the popcorn to cool a bit, then form into balls. Lay the balls on waxed paper and allow to harden.

Moon Lanterns

To celebrate the Snow Moon the children painted and made lanterns to go out and shine love with the Full Moon.

Sweet Friends!

See you next time!