It's been such a sweet few weeks of August! We have a gentle flow these first days of the new year as we get to meet new friends and know old friends better.

​Here are a few pics of us loving these last days of Summer! 

We loved creating these still life paintings of jewelweed bouquets with watercolor pencils. 

We love playing the name game at the beginning of a new year where we roll the ball to a friend while calling out their name.

Snack with Social/Emotional Learning
Schubert's Big Voice, (or Sophie for a simpler read) is one of our favorite books to read at the beginning of a new year and really helps with empowering children in conflict resolution. Check out these great videos of them being read out loud: 

Schubert's Big Voice: youtu.be/9vg_1Is_MdE?si=g8YYP9_-E3XYw1nd
​Sophie's Big Voice: youtu.be/K5ZBgGn3w_k?si=etk2MU3p8S5ys8D2

So fun to explore momentum, gravity, and friction with these fast spinning tops!

Cooking Class
​We loved making these delicious Cinnamon Pear Muffins with fresh pears form our sweet Pear Tree!

​Ingredients

• 2 ½ cups almond flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 3 tbsp honey
• 3 eggs
• 2 tbsp melted coconut oil
• 1 cup chopped pears

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• In a large mixing bowl, add all of the ingredients except for the pears. Whisk until everything is evenly combined.
• Add the pears and use a wooden spoon to fold them in.
• Grease a muffin pan with coconut oil (or line the pan with muffin cups), and spoon the batter into the pan, filling each muffin cup about 3/4 of the way to the top.
• Bake for 18-20 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. The muffins are done when they are slightly golden brown on top and you can stick a knife in the center and it come out clean.
• Remove from oven and let cool for about 5 minutes before removing them from the pan. After removing them from the pan, let cool on a wire rack before serving.

The hummingbirds helped measure and mix the ingredients...

While the songbirds chopped pears, cracked eggs, and whisked while they counted together to 20.

Pear Butter
So easy to make Pear Butter! We covered our pears with apple juice and a splash of lemon juice, then boiled until soft and pureed until smooth. Yum!

The kids had great form when chopping with keeping both hands on the handle!

Math & Literacy
Geometry! Creating shapes of different numbered sides with natural objects.

Developing number recognition and fine-motor skills through throwing dice and hole-punching leaves

Tracing the letters of our names

Teacher Bluma is a master storyteller! This month she shared a story of a great magical sturgeon to honor the Sturgeon Moon. Her daughter Sophia has also been coming in an extra support teacher, so great to have a Mother/Daughter teaching team!

Our Herb of the Month was Jewelweed! We talked about its wonderful uses, and the kids got to identify, pick, and create poultices to heal any itchy bug bites.

We have been learning colors and numbers in Spanish!

Teacher Anna loves teaching music and we learned to play some major chords on her harmonium!

We reached into a bag of soil for treasures and tried to guess what the items were before revealing them.

Then we made nature impressions into homemade salt dough scented with clove and cinnamon oil!

We created rose stamps from the bottom part of a bunch of celery while being immersed in the cooling and uplifting effects of a rose water spritz!

Turns out the tops of celery make great paintbrushes!

Made with beets, turmeric, and chocolate

Growing food and medicine in our garden and then preparing it together is an incredible sensory experience!

We love to incorporate learning math skills like fractions and multiplication into cooking class.

The freshness of our own mint, parsley, and edible monarda flowers with cucumbers and tomatoes the kids helped plant, then dressed with simple olive oil and Ume plum vinegar, all put together with their loving hands! Yum!

Using a strawberry huller and slicer takes a lot of focus and hand strength!

Watermelon is a great first food to practice knife skills with

Garnishing with fresh mint from the garden for contrast and beauty.

Toddlers can enjoy making shapes while the older kids work on creating their name!

Using natural beeswax crayons with their lovely scent of honey and rich colors enriches the sensory experience of this project!

This celery and food coloring experiment is a simple yet powerful hands-on activity that offers a variety of learning benefits:

Understanding capillary action and plant biology

Visualizing water transport

Learning that plants have tiny tubes that act like straws, drawing water up the stalk

Developing scientific skills like creating a hypothesis, observation skills, experimentation and collecting data

We counted out drops and combined colors to make new colors

After 2 hours in the water and food coloring we could see the xylem (tiny tubes) carrying the water up the celery. This is how our capillaries in our body work too! We are related to plants!!

After 24 hours the tops of the celery were drenched in color!

Maria Montessori stated that ”When you help a child understand it’s sensory and aesthetic sensibilities you prepare their moral awareness!"

We love the wonderful Montessori “Flower Arranging Activity “. It teaches children how to create beauty in their space, while also developing fine motor skills , independence, and concentration.
​
Care of Environment activities are a type of practical life activity that encourage children to care for their classrooms, homes and outdoors.

Working first with the glue, kids have to exercise awareness of where and how they've made marks on the page in their creating. This helps the little ones with object permanence, and supports memory and spatial awareness.

​Questions that often come up are:

So what does a 'play-based curriculum' even mean?

Does that mean the children just play all day with no structure or learning? How will they transition to traditional school?

What are children actually learning when they play?

​"Creative people are curious, flexible, and independent with a tremendous spirit of adventure and a love of play" - Henri Matisse

This article was originally published in October 2019 at AltEdAustin: ​https://www.altedaustin.com/blog/why-we-love-to-play

We love to play AND we love projects.

Herb Weaving with our fresh garden herbs :) 

Experimenting with Art: What happens to the colors when you use droppers with diffusion paper?

We love making birds with natural cotton, we made a whole flock!

These guys are so cute, we had to see it twice!

Making muffins for our kindness party!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

Cupcakes:

• 4 small bananas mashed
• 6 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1.5 cups sunflower seed butter  
• 2 large egg
• 2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2/3 cups cacao powder
• 1/4 cup dried coconut flakes for sprinkles

Frosting:

• 4 sticks butter, at room temperature
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/2 cup cacao powder
• 3 teaspoons vanilla

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 400° 
• Mix together banana, maple syrup, sunflower seed butter, egg, vanilla, baking soda, and cacao powder.
• Scoop into the muffin pan and top with the chocolate chips. Bake for 7 minutes. 
• Mix together butter, honey, cacao, and vanilla for frosting
• Frost cupcakes once cool and top with dried coconut flake sprinkles

It's garden time!

We love our chickens!

Digging for bones!

See you next time!!

Many art experiences in early childhood can be generally divided into process art (the journey of creation) and product art (following directions to achieve a predetermined result). Both offer distinct developmental advantages and are best utilized together to build a well-rounded skill set. At Children's Garden we love it all!

Benefits of Process Art

Process art is child-directed, open-ended, and focused on the physical act of creating without a specific end goal. 

• Builds Confidence: Because there is no "wrong" way to do process art, children feel a sense of ownership, which boosts their self-esteem.
• Encourages Critical Thinking: Young artists practice problem-solving and decision-making as they choose materials and experiment with cause and effect. 
• Fosters Self-Expression: It provides a safe outlet for children to process and communicate emotions they may not yet be able to express verbally. 
• Refines Motor Skills: Manipulating varied tools (brushes, scissors, clay, sponges, droppers) strengthens fine motor control. 

"I wonder what will happen if we sprinkle salt on our watercolor?"

We explored mixing and layering colors while learning how our proximity to the paper and the speed of the spray alters the size and intensity of the paint splatters.

Painting is even more fun with cars! 

We also used free-rolling marbles to paint with! This project combines sensory exploration and motor skill development while learning cause and effect in predicting how the marble will move and leave a mark on how the box is tilted.

Our clean-up from the messy activities is fun too!

This started off as an exploration of squeeze paint and dot markers and evolved into a really cool print making process with a unique and colorful piece of artwork we can take home.

Remember those cool spray bottle paintings we made? Turns out they make beautiful dragonfly wings!

Fun to make, even more fun to fly!

We created name plaques for our rooms! A beautiful multi-step project that combines both process and product. We painted the letters of our names, then created backgrounds for them on pieces of wood. A keepsake that will last for years from our time at the Children's Garden!

 Step One: Paint the letters of your name! Maybe add a little glitter :)

We had each of their names laid out when they came in and asked every student to pick theirs out... helping with letter recognition and incorporating a literary element to the project.

Step Two: Painting the wood of the plaque

Step Three: Color a little decal for extra process fun

Step Four: Gluing the letters and shapes to the plaque!

Now each student has a meaningful keepsake to hang on their wall at the end of this project! 

We painted, decorated, and wrote messages on wooden leaves for the Mama's of our Garden Family.

We created cards full of stickers, drawings, and our hand prints for our mamas too! 

They love yoga cards! A great way to get kids involved is to give them choice and autonomy. They have the excitement of pulling a card, and then get to try re-creating the pose they see. 

These cards are alphabet yoga!

Guess what letter we are?

We made some delicious homemade pesto with a handful of garden fresh basil and parsley and added roman cheese, garlic, olive oil, and salt and mixed it in the Nutri-Bullet. SO delicious served over lemon pasta!

We found a big leopard slug! The kids were fascinated. Cultivating a relationship of respect and appreciation between the kids and small critters builds over the years into adults that love and take care of the environment around them.

While planting wildflower seeds we discovered a whole family of worms!

The buzz and beauty of spring is unfolding in full bloom!

Practicing fine motor scissor skills through plant harvesting. 

Thank you bees for making honey to sweeten our tea!

Pollination Imagination
... with pom poms and chalk dust.
Who are the bees? What is the pollen?

​How do bees communicate?
​They dance!

Bees communicate ​through a 'waggle dance' to tell the other bees where the best pollen and nectar flowers.

Can you do a bee dance?

Did you know how quick their "waggle" communicates to the other bees how close their resources are? The faster the waggle the closer they are, the slower the waggle the farther they are.

We loved practicing our waggles and dances!

. Using scissors to cut comfrey root to plant.
Did you know if you cut the root to about 2 inches and plant it you'll get a whole new comfrey plant?

Planting the root pieces! You only need to make a small push through the earth and stick the root horizontally and wait!

How many different kinds of bugs are there?
How many bugs are there total, let's count them all!
Let's see how many different kinds of bugs we can find in the yard!

What's similar and what's different?

Heart full of feelings, what feelings make up your heart today?

When change happens,
​ I know what to do
I welcome my feelings
and trust I'll get through

Attaching the screen as the final touch

INGREDIENTS:
For the dough: 
1 Tsp active dry yeast
8oz warm water 
1 tsp sugar 
2 tbs extra virgin olive oil 
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 
1 tsp salt 
1 tsp garlic powder 


For the toppings:
Forage for items you can eat right now such as Spring onions and Dandelions. 
You can add basically any edible plant to decorate with. 
Fresh Herbs ( rosemary, chives, parsley, basil, etc) 
5-6 Fresh garlic cloves 
Olive oil 


DIRECTIONS:
Place yeast, sugar, and water in a bowl and let sit for 5 minutes until yeast is activated. 
Once activated, add remaining dough ingredients to a mixer with a dough hook and knead until all is incorporated. 
Remove and knead by hand for 1 minute. 
Place ball of dough in bowl and cover. Let it rest for 2 hours. 
Remove and grease a 10x15 baking sheet
Shape dough into a rectangular shape. 
Cover and refrigerate for about 45 min 
Preheat oven to 450 F
Remove pan from fridge and use your fingers to create dimples across the surface. 
Coat with olive oil.
Decorate with your toppings in any desired manner.

Sprinkle with salt.
Bake for about 20 min or until golden brown. 
While baking mince garlic and place in a little olive oil and salt in a small saucepan. 
Warm it up gently so the garlic cooks a little bit. 
When the bread comes out of the oven brush with garlic mixture. 

Cool and enjoy!

Cutting up and adding dandelion

​Balls:

• 4 small bananas mashed
• 6 tablespoons honey
• 1.5 cups sunflower seed butter  
• 2 large egg
• 2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2/3 cups cacao powder
• 1/4 cup dried coconut flakes for sprinkles

Frosting:

• 4 sticks butter, at room temperature
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/2 cup cacao powder
• 3 teaspoons vanilla

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 400° 
• Mix together banana, maple syrup, sunflower seed butter, egg, vanilla, baking soda, and cacao powder.
• Scoop onto cookie sheet with parchment paper and top with the chocolate chips. Bake for 7 minutes. 
• Mix together butter, honey, cacao, and vanilla for frosting
• Frost once cool and top with dried coconut flake sprinkles

See you next time!

Worm Moon heart drum!

Compost Art. 
This Collection’s art activity is inspired by worms’ ability to eat half of their weight in organic matter per day and transform it. What they excrete (poop!) is called castings and it is an amazing fertilizer for the soil. Now, let’s see how creative you can get in transforming your compost scraps!

Digging for worms to build our own "Worm Farm" (vermiculture) 

How is it helpful to add worms to our compost?

Adding some bedding (soil)

Collecting worms in a bucket

Adding food scraps for them to eat and turn back into soil. 

We're making beautiful compost and worm castings for our gardens!

Chickweed Oxymel
Fill jar 1/4 of the way with dried chickweed
Cover and Fill with equal parts 
Apple Cider Vinegar and
Raw Local Honey
Shake! 
Store in a cool and dry place. Shake daily for 2 weeks then enjoy!

Identifying Chickweed
Flowers look like small white STARS! 
Flowers have 5 petals (each with 2 lobes so looks like 10)
Oval shaped leaves that grow in an opposite pattern

*A single line of fine hairs runs down the stem of chickweed* (one of the best ways to truly identify that it is chickweed and not a look alike)

Chickweed hunting outside

Similar but different. Can you spot the differences?

Looking around for chickweed in the big yard (we were unsuccessful)

Finding and harvesting chickweed in our garden space, success!!

Chickweed Pesto
​2-3 gloves of garlic
1/2 cup of cold pressed extra virgin olive oil
2-3 cups of freshly picked young chickweed leaves
1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese
salt
handful of your nut of choice (sunflower seeds, pine nuts, walnuts, whatever)
1 tablespoon of lemon juice (optional)
​Blend it all together and Enjoy!

Filling the jar with water

Shaking up the chickweed in the water

After shaking it up we set it out in a nice and sunny spot for a few hours.

Enjoy!

collaging with feathers

Bird Puppets

Feathers! Do all birds have feathers?

Birds that flap and fly!

Peanut butter and seed bird feeders in our trees.

Baby bird from clay

Bird Watching and Identifying
What color birds do you see?
What different sounds do you hear?
Where do you see the birds?

The kids made their own "binoculars" to bird watch with!

Do all birds eat the same things?
What shapes have you seen?
What do you think each beak shape helps with?
Can all shapes and forms of beaks eat the same thing?

First we used tweezers and yarn and pipe cleaners to see if we could catch the worms with the beaks (tweezers). This is great for fine motor skills and muscle building in our hands.

Then we had different types of beaks, what can each beak "catch"? We brought out different kinds of food and beaks to see what kinds of beaks can eat what kinds of foods. 

Some birds drink nectar and have long straw-like beaks (like droppers).

What kinds of wings have you seen? What shapes are they?
What shapes do you see in different birds wings?
What do you think each shape helps with and why are they shaped differently?
Do all birds have feathers?

Different shapes and purposes of wings

An eagles wingspan can reach up to 8 feet wide and they can build nests up to 13 feet tall! They will stay in their nests for years and keep building them up!

We measured our own "wingspan" against that of an eagle's! 

How many of us can fit in the wingspan width of one eagle? 

Learning flight with balloons with feathers!

How did the balloons with feathers fly differently than those without?

Outdoor nest building. Some nests are on the ground and some in trees!

Building nests through clay.
What do birds use to make nests? 
We used straw, string, feathers, and explored other objects birds may use to make a nest.

Fine motor with the spray bottle and gross motor with wiping the table down!

Gross motor development through hop scotch - Jumping!

and counting skills and practice

Spoon and mashing guacamole

Cinnamon apple shake up

Reading Slumberkin : Yak Struggles With Mistakes 

We asked ourselves these questions to see how we can better respond in situations :
"When I make a mistake I can.."
"When I am trying something new I can.."
"When something feels too hard I can say.."
"Positive things I can say to myself are.."

What is something that felt hard the first time you tried, but you kept practicing, and it started to feel easier?
​
-kicking a ball
-throwing and catching
-cutting with scissors

Beautiful mistakes- learning to go with the flow and integrate mistakes

Tracing and coloring affirmations 

I am enough as I am. 

We talked a lot about "positive" and "negative" self talk and how to reframe things in our minds when we find ourselves talking negatively. 

Mistakes are just opportunities to learn and find ways to do better next time.

Forgiving ourselves and others for making mistakes. 

Building stones of kind words we can use with ourselves when we make mistakes. 
Some things they said they could say to themselves are:
​
- It's ok to make a mistake
- It's ok, you can try again
- Let's fix it!
- You're still learning. 
-You can do better next time

Kindness Pom Pom Circle
​
Each kid picked a pom pom from the kindness jar. We went around in a circle and said something kind about another friend. At the end we put the pom poms back and added a huge handful to our jar. 

We're getting close to a kindness party!

A big thank you to everyone who came and celebrated the arrival of Spring with us. We are so ready to be outside enjoying the warm sun rays. 

Mix it all Together

Chopping and adding walnuts

Adding dandelions from the garden

Thank you for the fun face paint!

We LOVED the amazing Ronna Dragon!

Super fun Music Time!

Sweet Puppet Show! The children made all the puppets and wrote the show all by themselves. We are so proud of them and their imaginative, growing minds.

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:

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!

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".

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. 

Painting rocks to surround our tress in love.

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? 

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

Letter tracing 

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

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!"

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

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. 

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

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

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

Guacamole Ole! 

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 :)

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

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

This Winter we have been fully embracing the season by learning about wintertime celebrations, building fire, learning about chemical reactions that create warmth, cozy tea parties, and lots of home cooking!

We love to learn about different cultures and the ways they celebrate. In December we have learned about Kwanza, Hanukkah, Christmas, Yule, and the Winter Solstice.

We explored how these different holidays are celebrated and what ideas and principles they celebrate. This time of the year is a time to come together, spread love, and appreciate what you have and how you can give to others.

We learned that some of these holidays are celebrated in very similar ways and have similar customs. Both Hanukkah and Kwanzaa have candles that lit every night, one is called a kinara and one is called a menorah.

Kinaras are similar to Menorahs, but they have seven candles which are lit every night of Kwanzaa. Traditionally, there are three red candles on the left, one black in the middle (which is the first to be lit), and three green on the right (the colors of the African flag). Each candle represents one of the seven principles of Kwanza. We learned all about these principles at CG! 

1. Umoja - Unity
2. Kujichagulia - Self-Determination 
3. Ujima - Collective Work and Responsibility
4. Ujamma - Cooperative Economics 
5. Nia - Purpose
6. Kuumba - Creativity
7. Imani - Faith

Unity cups are also decorated in the colors of the African flag, red, black, and green. We also added in some yellow and purple for extra fun. During Kwanzaa a wooden cup is decorated and passed around to take drink from in celebration of community and coming together. Kwanzaa is heavily focused and based in community and unity and bringing people together. It does not belong to one religion, but rather it is a celebration open to all from all religious backgrounds to strengthen community. 

We created pieces out of clay creating symbols that represented unity to us. We talked with the children about unity and encouraged them to create this craft with the idea of unity in mind and whatever resonates with them around that concept. 

Hanukkah is the Jewish celebration of lights. We see some similarities here between Hanukkah and Kwanzaa with the Kinara and the Menorah. The Menorah has 9 candles while the Kinara has 7. There are 8 days of Hanukkah and each evening a candle is lit. The extra candle is designated to lighting the rest of the candles on each evening. 

Hanukkah candles out of popsicle sticks. They wrapped them with yarn and worked on their fine motor skills! Wrapping things is great for developing coordination. 

Making gifts,  creating Christmas cards, and weaving in tree inspired literacy! We also heard a great story connecting the Christmas tree to its Yule-tide roots of bringing in an evergreen tree to symbolize the perseverance of life through Winter.

We love to gather and celebrate with the turning of the wheel! The kids got very creative with this nourishing sun bread for our Solstice potluck.

Sun Bread

• 2 1/4 cups raw sunflower seed kernels ground into flour
• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1/4 cup whole psyllium husks 
• 1/4 cup flax meal
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 egg
• Yellow, orange, and red bell peppers cut in slivers

​Mix dry and wet ingredients separately, then mix together. Pat into round sun shape, decorate sun rays on top, and bake at 375 for 55 to 60 minutes.

Deep breath in, and deep breath out a few times then on the last breath out we made deep belly noises! Another breathing exercise we've been doing is breathing in and on the exhale shaking our bodies out and releasing the build up energies from inside us. The kids love these breaths and ask to do them daily along with our silent meditation. They love the "Om" breath and then sitting with our eyes closed in silence. Sometimes we think about someone we want to send lots of love and hugs too, so if you've felt a little energetic hug when your little one is at school, they are sending you one!

Letter matching and recognition. Spelling new words and working on the sounds the letters make for the younger ones!

We did a little math activity : Who can make the biggest snowman? Each child rolled a die, they determined the number that they rolled and cut out that amount of circles to build their own snowman. They did the same to see how many buttons to put on their snowman. We wrote math equations to see how many more circles snowman "A" had than snowman "B". The kids helped figure out how to write out the equations as well as did the math to find the answers!

 We put six cups out in a circle and filled every other cup with varying amounts of water. We added red dye to the first cup, left one empty, added yellow to the next, skipped another, added blue, skipped another. Each cup had a folded up paper towel looped from one cup to the other (see photos). Then we waited.

"What is your hypothesis? What do you expect is going to happen?"

"How will we end up with all the colors of the rainbow?"
-The children hypothesized that the water would climb up the paper towels and drip into the empty cups and the colors would mix to make the full rainbow

"What colors mix to make the missing the colors?"

This was a fun experiment on mixing colors and understanding how water flows.

​ We experimented with cutting some of the paper towels shorter 

"What do you think will happen if the paper towel is shorter versus longer?"
-The children hypothesized that the shorter paper towels would reduce the time it takes for the water to move between cups - or along the "Highway" as Stella put it. They guessed that because the paper was shorter the water would have less to travel.

We also experimented with filling some cups more than others and asked, "Why might the water fill faster with water that is filled higher than others?"

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction!

Our November blog got accidentally published under September. You can find the link here:  ​https://www.childrensgarden.earth/blog/we-love-loose-parts

Thanks to so many amazing parents, teachers, volunteers, and donations from near and far, Children's Garden was able to open back up quickly after massive devastation from Hurricane Helene!

More huge thank you's to Mama Parham, Papa Mike, Papa Dalton, Papa Eric, and Papa Brady for hours and hours of fence rebuilding in the courtyard so the children would have a safe space to play outside!

Huge huge gratitude to Mama Ginny, Mama Yagmur, Mama JJ, Mama Allie, and many more for clearing out and beautifying the big yard so the kids could once again run free and play in the hay. We are so very grateful to report that all 13 chickens survived the storm! Slowpoke and Floppy (the bunnies) made it through with some bounce in their hop too!

​Sending so much gratitude to Mama Ali for helping create our fundraiser and helping with laundry!

And overflowing gratitude to Mama Amanda and Mama Madeline for helping to rebuild our playhouse roof:

Deep immense gratitude to Papa Shawn, Papa Chris, Mama Miriah and her Charlie's Angels for helping turn our undrivable driveway and parking area into a completely new and improved safe space to drive and park! 

And infinite gratitude to our Austin Children's Garden families, our local families, and the kind donators from near and far for showing up in such a big way for our rebuilding fundraiser. While we have had a lot of volunteer help, the financial costs of rebuilding and supplies has been high. We would not be open today without y'all. We know many of our past families still read the blog - we thank you with our whole hearts for believing in us and supporting the local children here!

We still have a long way to go in repairing the fences, gardens, schoolhouse floors, and in replacing the many school supplies, playground materials, and furniture we lost in the flood. Please help share our fundraiser with any folks you think might want to help: Children's Garden Fundraiser

HUGE HUGE gratitude to Teacher Evan for working day and night those first few weeks after the storm, knee deep in mud, saving our schoolhouse furniture, hauling tree limbs, and beaming love and positivity through all of it. He is a true hero and loved by all! We are so blessed to have his bright heart of service with the children and on the land. We love you Evan!!

And HUGE gratitude to our beloved Teacher Mariah also showed up everyday after the storm to help heal and repair the space! Thank you Mariah for your commitment, courage, and tenderness through some intense challenges! 

All of us here in WNC have been through a lot since Hurricane Helene. We were so grateful to be able to open back up again so quickly to create a healing environment and healthy routine for the children. We love Dr. Dan Seigel's work on child development and healing after a traumatic experience. In both his book 'Healing Trauma' and his course 'The Neurobiology of We', Seigel talks about how important our community is in our healing and offers many activities and movement based exercises that change our neurobiology and help us process a traumatic event. We highly recommend Seigel's courses with Mindsight Institute.

Circle time can help children heal from trauma by creating a sense of belonging and connection with their friends and teachers, a safe place where each child feels seen, heard, and valued.

We loved passing the pumpkin as a talking piece as we shared our experiences of the storm and talked about all the helpers who are working hard and keeping us safe. Not only is it super fun to pass the pumpkin while we are sharing, it also helps us to heal trauma by crossing the midline of our bodies as we pass it to each other. Crossing the midline helps heal trauma by promoting communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, which can lead to better integration of processing and releasing traumatic memories that may be stored in the body.

Circle time is also a great space for the healing power of storytelling with themes of resilience, healing, and personal growth. We have loved sharing some of the stories from Susan Perrow. Thank you so much Mama Allie for gifting us the new Perrow book Stories to Light the Night!

The kids love the healing stories from Slumberkins too, especially Ibex Feels Deeply.

Roleplaying out challenging scenarios is another great resource for empowerment!

And laughter may be one of the most healing expressions of all! We love to play the game "Pass the Smile" One child starts smiling at the person next to them and says, "I pass the smile to you." The next child smiles back and passes the smile to the next person. Pretty soon everyone is laughing and smiling.

“Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.” - Starhawk

We also shared our huge gratitude with the Barnardsville Fire Department. We are blessed to have them as next door neighbors. They helped us with access to clean water and a cord to their generator immediately after the storm. We have witnessed these heroes working 24/7 to help rescue folks and help repair our beautiful community!

The kids created hand made cards and a very creative banner (all while practicing their early literacy skills!), then we walked next door with a safety rope and got to say thank you to Chief Mundy and offer our banner and cards!

Thanks to all who came out and enjoyed a lovely afternoon of feasting, sharing about our varied ancestry, and celebrating together! The kids were so excited all day as we made decorations, carved pumpkins, and prepared some delicious dishes in community together.

We are so deeply grateful that Grandmother Magic Maple made it through the storm without a scratch!

To prepare these delicious Roasted Pumpkin Wedges we marinated the wedges in freshly grated nutmeg, sprinkle of cinnamon and sea salt, then drizzled with honey. After marinating for an hour we roasted them in the oven at 350 for 22 minutes until the wedges were soft and slightly crispy around the edges.

The secret to delicious toasted pumpkin seeds is to boil them first for 5 to 10 minutes in salted water, then pat dry. To make sure each seed was coated in tamari we used a dropper and counted out 10 drops each. It takes a lot of focus and fine motor control to create one drop at a time!

Once they were all covered we added some melted coconut oil and then spread them in a thin layer on parchment paper. Then we toasted them in the oven at 400 F for 10 minutes (cooking time can depend on size of seeds).

Ingredients

• Dry:
• 1 cup cornmeal 
• 1 cup oat flour
• 2 teaspoons aluminum free baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Wet:
• 1 cup unsweetened almond milk 
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 2 eggs, at room temperature (can use chia seed eggs for vegan version)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled (can use coconut oil for dairy vegan version)

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a mini muffin tin generously with coconut oil.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: cornmeal, oat flour, baking powder and salt.
• In a separate large bowl, mix together the wet ingredients: almond milk, apple cider vinegar, eggs and honey. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir with a spoon until just combined. Finally stir in the melted butter. Divide batter evenly into prepared muffin pan.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.

As we mix the ingredients together we love to count! The younger kids count 1 to 10, the older kids count by 2's, 5's, and 10's.

For the buttercream frosting we mixed together softened butter and mixed in honey to taste - the kids loved taste testing to see if it was sweet enough!

For the final touch we topped each muffin with a chocolate chip!

Thank you Teacher Jacqueline for your amazing face painting!

Did y'all know that Teacher Jacqueline and her son Josh created a beautiful children's book together? We love to read Benny and the Bigfoot with the kids, you can order a copy here!

We love to watch the popping in action! Instant transformation!

How many legs does a spider have? How can we make 8 legs with 4 pipe cleaners?