Here at Children's Garden, we love to practice inquiry-based learning! 

In traditional early childhood classrooms, children are offered many pre-determined activities, with “right” and “wrong” ways of completing them. 

In inquiry-based learning the children wonder and ask questions. The educator takes into consideration the children’s interests when planning activities. An investigation is started when a group of children have a persisting interest and the educators create play invitations where the children explore, experiment and test their ideas.

A play invitation is an open-ended exploration. There is no predetermined outcome. The children may use the play invitation the way the educator envisioned – or take the materials and use them in entirely different ways.

​In a play invitation, the children are not bound by the constraints of the materials they are offered. Instead, a play invitation acts as a launch pad for children’s own ideas and theories to develop.

Curious to learn more about inquiry-based learning? Check out the wealth of research and free trainings at Edutopia!

The theme that emerged for our month of October was "In Love With Leaves." From our silver and red maple trees dropping yellow, orange, and red leaves all over, to the crisp, chilly mornings, we all appreciated the gentle glow this time of year brought to the Children's Garden.

​Leaves are nature's treasures, and they hold a world of wonder waiting to be discovered. Think about the joy and curiosity a child experiences when they find a vibrant leaf on the ground or notice the changing colors of trees in the fall. 

Together we pondered many questions and offered play invitations and activities around all the lovely leaves in the garden!

Why do leaves fall from the trees?
Why do some leaves have different shapes and sizes?
Why are some leaves smooth and some bumpy?
Why do leaves crunch when we step on them?
How do leaves know it's time to change colors? 

This month, we began singing a few new songs and playing some new games during circle time! We marched, galloped, jumped, and stomped around a pumpkin, while also passing the pumpkin around and saying our name and one thing we're grateful/excited for this season. 

This month, we picked lots of tomatoes, herbs, and greens from the garden with with the kids for our magic soup and also got really into baking! ​

Coconut Cookies

Prep Time: 5 minutes 
Cook Time: 15 minutes 
Total Time: 20 minutes 

Ingredients

• ⅓ cup / 50g coconut flour
• ⅓ cup / 75g butter or coconut oil softened
• 2 eggs large
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoon coconut sugar. 

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 Celsius / 350 Fahrenheit.
2. Add all ingredients to a mixing bowl. Stir together with a fork.
3. Knead with your hands until you have a smooth dough. Let is rest for a few minutes to let the coconut flour expand. Then form a large ball. (If your dough is too soft for this, place the bowl in the fridge for 15-20 minutes first).
4. Cut the large ball into 16 pieces and roll into little dough balls. Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and press down with the palm of your hand into fat discs of circa 4 cm diameter (1.5 cm thick).
5. Bake in the oven for about 11-13 minutes or until golden.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup coconut melted
• ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• ¾ cup coconut sugar
• 3 large eggs for cakier or 2 eggs for fudgier
• 2 teaspoons chocolate, or vanilla extract
• ½ cup Coconut Flour 
• ¼ teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F.
2. Lightly grease an 8-inch square baking pan with coconut oil. Line with parchment paper (or baking paper); set aside.
3. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the melted coconut oil, cocoa powder and sugar for about a minute.
4. Add the eggs and extract using a wooden spoon or spatula.
5. Add in flour and salt and mix into the wet ingredients until combined. 
6. Pour batter into prepared pan, smoothing the top out evenly.
7. Top with chocolate chips, or other add-ins if you wish.
8. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the center of the brownies in the pan no longer jiggles and is just set to the touch. NOTE: The brownies will keep baking in the hot pan out of the oven so you don't want to over-bake.
9. If testing with a toothpick, the toothpick should come out dirty for fudge-textured brownies. Remove and allow to cool to room temperature.
10. Makes 9-16 brownies depending how you big you cut them.

​

We love playing with yoga cards! Check out our Lion's Breath, Peacock Pose, and Peace Warriors!

Everyday at snack we read books to boost our emotional intelligence!

We have been loving our Spanish classes with Mama Annalise!

Spelling our names with the beat of the drum and learning about harmonizing notes with the harmonium!

Learning the basics of telling time!

See you next time!

We had a wonderful time this month transitioning from the end of summer into the start of fall. Here's just a glimpse!

Soap has so many possibilities. From bubbles, to making art with them, the kids loved getting into soap while the weather was still warm. They enjoyed blowing colorful bubbles with their own pipe cleaner bubble wands. They also made art with those bubbles, and their foam prints were incredibly vibrant and had a really cool texture and pattern! 
Below is the result of our "Magic Milk" experiment. The kids answered the question: "What happens when soap is added to a dish of milk and 4 separate food colors?"

We learn math through science: children counted the number of water droplets from a pipette that a penny could hold!

From collages, to finger painting, to gluing feathers and leaves, to stencils and stamps, to watercolor painting, to making clay prints with shells and wooden design rollers, the kids are always welcomed to a new project every day.  

The kids did a great job helping us make sauerkraut ("Purple Pickles"). While the kids were pressing the cabbage down for our kraut, we all counted to 10 for each kids turn!

The kids had a great time scooping out seeds from our garden squash for our soup, and tearing garden kale for our "Magic Soup" as well! It's amazing how many kids love eating our soup!

Dot paints are a great way for the kids to practice letters and counting all in one. 

Children are natural scientists and mathematicians, simply learning as they move through and explore their world. In fact, research shows that early introduction of structured math lessons can interfere with proper brain and concept development. Nature and play-based childhood environments are rich with opportunities for developing knowledge of math concepts! These concepts are accumulated and constructed through the child's own experiences and physical understanding of the world. This knowledge develops through the manipulation of tangible materials, including the children's physical bodies, collection of 'data,' and organization of that 'data' in a way that makes sense. ​

Ordering, Seriation, and Patterning - Singing daily, weekly, or yearly rhythms. Seasonal festivals. Circle games! Story-telling, poetry, or verses using the rhythm of language. Using rhythmic clapping. During play, lining up cars, blocks, or trains in order of size, color, or weight. Stacking toys. Putting toys away into their places after playtime. Experimenting freely with materials to create a pattern.

The kids love experimenting with balance, counting, and physics by making obstacle courses and all sorts of shapes and structures with both magnet tiles and rainbow blocks!  ​

The smiles, curiosity, and laughter are endless!

 As our summer garden transitions into fall garden, the kids and our bunnies are amazed by our giant collard greens. Every week, kids are also invited into the garden to help us harvest some of our food for lunch. Featured here: giant magic green beans! The kids learned how to open the green beans and eat the beans from inside them. 

We invite kids to take part in the preparing process of their food by giving them spoons to spread dollops of hummus, homemade pear butter, and more on their sandwich bread and rice cakes! We also love to read the kids social emotional learning books during snack, and singing to our garden during both snack and lunch!

"Autumn leaves don't fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on their chance to soar." --Delia Owens

Happy Equinox--the first day of the season of Autumn! We threw a lovely equinox party, where parents brought yummy food to share, Jacqueline painted amazing faces on kids, and we hung our wishes for the fall season on our maple tree. It was so wonderful to have parents and their children come together for a celebration!

See you next time!

​A nurturing environment that is rhythmic in nature supports a strong foundation that is essential to the healthy development of the young child. Predictable rhythms through the day, week and year help children feel grounded and nourished and deepen a sense of the interrelationships and wholeness of life.  

Young children are in deep harmony with nature and our seasonal rhythm connects us more to the natural world.  Nature is a world of rhythms - the rising and setting of the sun, the flowering of trees, the change of seasons... when we provide supporting rhythms for children, we harmonize their being, thereby aiding the development of their inner rhythms of sleep, digestion, circulation etc. Monthly themes, block study, seasonal festivals and celebrations, eating seasonal foods we grow and prepare together all reflect and support our connection to the seasonal rhythm.

​Our Daily Rhythm

Our daily rhythm is a gentle guide to the flow of our day. We do not adhere to a rigid time structure for the day but we do generally follow the same order so there is a natural predictability of what comes next. This natural predictability helps support positive transitions for the children - if they know what is coming next they feel more ease with the flow of the day:

Arrival
Art Projects
Creative Free Play
Opening Circle
SEL Snack
Gross Motor Free Play
Guided Activity
Dance Party
Lunch (Morning) or Snack (Afternoon)
Special Classes
Closing Circle
Story Time

​Art Projects
As children arrive we have art projects and materials for the children to interact freely with. Our art projects are process based - please read our blog Raising Creative Thinkers with Process Art and Learning with Loose Parts for more details!

We love messy sensory art!

These friendship bracelets are a fun project to practice fine motor skills, learn mathematical patterns, and express through artistic design.

Creating these 'About Me' books are a great way for us all to get to know one another and learn about our friends families and homes . The conversation around the project is where a lot of the learning is happening.

Free play with clay can turn into a fun new way to learn about the alphabet!

​The children have the freedom to play freely with open ended, high quality materials.

In our opening circle we unite as one group, connect with each other through singing and various greeting activities and move our bodies in brain smart ways that enhance our ability to learn.

​To start off our day together in a positive way we like to focus on social emotional learning while we have snack - we practice our grace and courtesy at the table and discuss ways we can be kind and helpful. We also love to read books together at snack time that help us learn about our emotions and the feelings and needs of all the beings around us.​

​We love to create together in the big sand box, play games on the straw bale obstacle course, build and balance with the large blocks, and dance with the trees! Free play is often where we are learning the most about conflict resolution, cooperation, and group dynamics. How do we grow from being a 'me' to a 'we'?

​After free play, we come together for a guided activity of gardening, literacy, math, sensory exploration, science investigation, cooking class, or a special project.

What do you think will happen if we add this liquid to this powder?

Where do slugs live? What do they eat? What do their antennae do? Do slugs have bones?

We have been harvesting lots of herbs, greens, squashes, and HUNDREDS of pears! 

We made a delicious herbal tapenade with the mortar and pestle.

Then we cooked up some delicious homemade pizzas and topped them with our fresh ground garden herbs and olives!

Kids that wouldn't eat the soup last year are now devouring it with joy! It can take gently offering a food more than 10 times for a young child to start eating it.

Check out these giant garden collards!!

The kids have been helping to make pear butter all week!

We didn't follow an exact recipe. We just cooked the pears with lemon juice, cinnamon, and a touch of honey on low simmer all day. Then removed the juice and pureed all the cooked pears in the blender. SO divine!

The kids love it! They have been spreading it into sandwiches, dipping carrots in it, and we made popsicles with the pear juice - a total hit!

We love to go on yoga adventures! Today we flew in an airplane to Hawaii, caught some waves with some singing surfers, swam with a school of sharks, rowed our boats to shore and had a picnic with some friendly turtles and frogs.

We are so blessed to have Mama Annalise come and help us learn Spanish through movement, song, and storytelling!

We end our day with stories and a little healthy treat.

Thanks so much to all the families who came out for the kindness party! There are lots more pics on our Facebook page.

​See you next time!

As the children play and investigate they are researching:

• How water takes the shape of its container
• How water flows down to the earth pulled by gravity
• How water sticks to itself (cohesion)
• How water sticks to other materials (adhesion)
• How air makes bubbles in water and rises to the surface
• How water can turn things into mixtures or solutions

We explored more about water and liquids in our art projects! Painting with water and oil, painting with frozen paint, and watercolors with salt to name a few.

Some of our favorite books about water got us really excited about the water cycle!

Then we created several diagrams of the water cycle together.

We danced around the sprinkler singing the Wheel of the Water by Tom Chapin.

​In Sink and Float experiments children can explore the forces of buoyancy, displacement, up thrust, porosity, density, as well as make predictions.

We gathered items from around the garden, made foil boats, and made hypotheses of what would happen when we put them in a large tub of water.

A lot of the learning comes through meaningful conversations between the teachers and the children that supports scientific inquiry.  

Inquiry is a process that includes foundational skills like exploring, wondering, and raising questions, and more sophisticated practices like collecting and recording data and analyzing previous ideas in light of new evidence.

Water Testing 
Mama Ashley brought in testing kits so the kids could test their own drinking water to determine its pH! 

Check out the video Mama Ashley made of all her water testing results!

We loved learning about the scientific experiments done by Masaru Emoto which show how water holds memory and carries thoughts and intentions.

Flower essences are a wonderful example of this. Essences are made by imprinting the frequency, or vibration of the flower on water. ​

We used the borage flowers as they are well known for making a flower essence that helps calm down fear. The word borage comes from the latin word 'borago' which means courage.

What fruit is made up almost entirely of water?
WATERMELON!!!
The kids got to quench their thirst while building watermelon pizzas!

Kids love to pummel cabbage!

Another great liquid investigation!

These popsicles are simply coconut milk sweetened with vanilla stevia to taste.

​The garden is indeed filled with the harmonious hum of bees this summer! We read 'Bee Dance' by Rick Chrustowski to learn how honey bees communicate through a 'waggle dance' to tell the other bees where the best pollen and nectar flowers are and then played a waggle dance game.

The kids were amazed to learn that without the bees there would not be any apples on our apple tree in the garden. Thank you bees!

These beeswax crayons are so rich and vibrant! Thank you bees!

To honor our bee friends we made some buzzworthy honey recipes:

Ingredients :

• 6 cups kohlrabi spiralized
• 2 cups carrots spiralized
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro ( one small bunch)
• 1/4 cup chopped scallion
• lemon zest from one lemon, and juice
• lime zest from one lime, and juice

Citrus Dressing :

• 1/4 cup olive oil 
• 1/8 cup fresh lemon juice 
• 1/8 cup lime juice 
• 1/4 cup honey 
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 Tablespoon umeboshe vinegar

Ingredients

• 1 C cornmeal
• 1/3 C coconut flour 
• 2 Tsp. baking powder
• 1 Tsp. salt
• 1/4 C honey
• 3 eggs room temperature
• 1/2 C almond milk
• 2 Tbsp. coconut oil melted

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a muffin pan with coconut oil.
• Whisk the cornmeal, coconut flour, baking powder, and sea salt in a large mixing bowl.
• Add the eggs, honey, and almond milk to another bowl and mix well.
• Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well, then stir in the coconut oil (so it doesn't solidify)
• Evenly divide the batter between the baking cups.
• Bake 13 -16 minutes or until lightly browned.
• Cool completely to properly set up.

For our solstice celebration we made some beautiful beeswax candles!

Stockmar beeswax is an ideal modeling material that stimulates creativity and invention. The wax becomes pliable when warmed with the hands or placed near a heater (we used a hair dryer). You can make all kinds of cool sculptures and shapes, we even made an alphabet! Thank you bees!

A HUGE thank you to Auntie Jacqueline for the magical face painting! You can check out her professional face painting site at Colorful Events.

The song sparrows put on an amazing dragon performance for our solstice celebration! You can see a video of it on our Facebook Page.

Why are there these shapes on the beeswax?
​Using hexagons enables bees to make very efficient use of space while using as little wax as possible. They hold the maximum amount of honey, while ensuring no space is wasted, because the hexagons fit tight, and side by side together, like a puzzle. 

​

In yoga class we went on a bee adventure, pollinating flowers, making honey, and meeting new garden friends.

This is a lovely practice that stimulates the vagus nerve and calms the nervous system.

​To begin, inhale and then make a humming bee sound as you exhale. 

With your next breath, close you eyes as you make a humming sound with a long exhale.

With the third breath, close your eyes and block your ears with your hands as you make a humming sound with a long exhale.

Doing Bee Breath in these progressive stages introduces kids to the importance of the senses and how sometimes it helps to close off our senses to find a quiet place to calm, soothe, and focus

​

The adventure continues with book 3 as we learned about the wonders of Plantain!

We had an incredible trip to the Big Ivy National Forest... cooking on the fire, playing wilderness awareness games, and a round of Wilderness Uno. Then we donned our fairy wings and hiked on a truly magical journey through the fairy gardens at Mountain Light Sanctuary.

Before we had our tea party we offered a cup of tea to the forest fairies.

We took a journey on a magic moss carpet to visit the fae world in our guided visualization.

Thank you for your hospitality fairies!

Math is more fun with a shaker! We explored steady beat, one on one correspondence, and sequential patterns in music class. Even the youngest of children can respond to music and the mathematical principles behind it. ​

How many blocks high am I?

When we are taking turns cooking we love to count forwards, backwards, by 2's, 5's and 10's while we mix!

The first book is all about Chickweed!

We took to the garden to sit with chickweed, listen to some herbal lore on how chickweed got her sweet star flowers, and work on some nature journaling and sketching.

Just like the children did in the Herb Fairy book, we ground the chickweed with water into a poultice and helped to heal any of our friends with bug bites or inflammation.

The adventure continues as a group of children help restore the magic to the Fairy Herb Garden and help heal the misunderstood trolls.

Another great aspect of these books is that it is really inspiring some growth in reading for the older children with riddles throughout the story that they really want to read the answers to!

Inspired by some faerie books, we started to discuss and design wee houses to welcome our faerie friends. The houses quickly moved from the art table to out on the land where all kinds of play and stories unfolded.

Thank you dear Auntie Julia for your hours and hours of cutting out recycled cardboard fairy wings!

We enjoyed reading some of our favorite fairy stories and then making up our own stories and secret faerie names.

Cupcake

• 2 cups of Pecans
• 1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons B grade maple syrup

Instructions

1. Combine the pecans, dark chocolate chips, cocoa powder, baking soda and baking powder in a food processor/blender and grind until you have a flour.
2. In a medium bowl add the maple syrup and eggs and mix well.
3. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and blend thoroughly.
4. Pour the batter into mini cupcake tins and bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes.
5. Frost the cupcakes with the frosting and garnish with fresh mint.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

For an intuitive frosting we mixed cocoa powder into softened butter and added honey as we taste tasted to get the sweetness just right.

Fresh mint leaves made our fairy cupcakes extra special!

​Vanilla & Lemon Balm Cupcakes

Mix together the following ingredients and bake in mini cupcake tins at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes.

• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/3 cup softened coconut oil
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

To make the Lemon Balm Buttercream Frosting we mixed lime zest, honey, and a few drops of lemon balm glycerite into softened butter then topped our cupcakes with fresh lemon balm leaves.

Extra delicious when served with fresh lemon balm tea! Thank you Mama Annalise for offering all the lovely lemon balm for our tea, cupcakes, and garden!

Science, math, and art converge as we explore measurement, ratio, chemical reactions, and color mixing with these magic potions.

We are so very grateful for this beautiful fertile land we get to steward and share with our youngest generation! 

The kids loved these tangy Umeboshe Radish Pickles!

Such focus on these egg crackers!

Huge thanks to Mama Kristen for donating all these freshly harvested shiitake!

​“Any environment, any single life is in a continuous state of change. This is just more obvious when you pay attention to earthworms. Their work may seem unspectacular at first. They don't chirp or sing, they don't gallop or soar, they don't hunt or make tools or write books. But they do something just as powerful: they consume, they transform, they change the earth.”
― Amy Stewart, The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms
​
​

​What better way to celebrate Earth Month than to explore the wonderful world of worms! Worms help to create healthy soil by aerating the soil and adding humus through their castings.

​Light or Dark?

Think about where earthworms live, do you think they prefer light or dark?

​When half the box was covered in dark cloth all the worms eventually went over to the side covered with the cloth!

​Wet or Dry?

Do you think worms prefer to live in a wet or dry environment?

When we put our worms in the middle of a dry paper towel and a wet paper towel, they quickly moved over to the wet side! Worms breathe through their skin and they need wet skin to be able to breathe.

Now we can feed the worms with some of our lunch scraps! 

​Measuring Worms
To learn more about worms we created our own rulers and practiced measuring drawings of worms, then we measured some real worms!

​Earthworm Hearts

Did you know that an earthworm has 5 hearts!?! We looked for their hearts by placing a worm in a petri dish and using a light to better see the pumping action of their many hearts!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups blanched almond flour
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup smooth almond butter unsalted
• 1/4 cup coconut oil solid but soft (use refined to avoid coconut flavor)
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons coconut sugar or maple sugar
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup raisins
• 1/2  cup chopped walnuts

Instructions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Whisk together the almond and tapioca flours, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, and set aside.
3. In a separate bowl mix together the almond butter and coconut oil until smooth, then add the maple syrup and vanilla and continue to mix until very smooth. Add in egg and mix until fully combined.
4. Slowly mix in the flour mixture (with a spoon) until a sticky cookie dough forms, then fold in the raisins and walnuts. It helps to cool the mix for 15 - 30 minutes to scoop with ease.
5. Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop the mixture by 1.5 tablespoons onto a cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart since they will spread.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for about 12-13 minutes or until cookies are set in the center and beginning to brown around the edges. They will be very soft but don’t over-bake to maintain a chewy texture.
7. Remove from oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes, then carefully transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Makes 12-14 cookies. 

Once our cookies cooled we walked through our backyard gate over to our neighbors - the incredible Barnardsville Fire Department!

The firefighters really appreciated the cookies and they showed us a bunch of their equipment!

They even let us use the fire hose!!

Huge gratitude to these courageous firefighters that save peoples lives and homes! The fire department needs volunteers! You can learn more and apply on their website: Barnardsville Fire Department

 The kids loved foraging and preparing some delicious dishes for our Spring Equinox Celebration! ​

​Here are some of our yummy recipes:

Ingredients:

Chickweed is abundant, tasty, super high in vitamins and minerals, and the kids love it!

These lovely plants grows wild all over the place! They found a nice home in the garden under our hoop rows.

For the salad we just drizzled a little olive oil and sprinkled a little salt, then garnished with dandelion blooms.

For our intuitive pesto we added a handful each of chickweed, basil, and walnuts to the vitamix then poured enough olive oil to cover the ingredients and a few pinches of salt. 

​The kids loved rolling the fresh basil to release more of it's lovely aroma and taste.

Check out the CG Facebook page for a video of the Dandelion Dance!

So many parents expressed that this was one of the most delicious potlucks ever! Here are some links to some of the recipes we enjoyed:

Red Lentil Dhal

GF Olive Oil Cake with Lemon &  Almond Flour

Pan-fried Chickpea Salad

Big hugs of gratitude to Mama Christy-Lynn who brought in all the supplies and materials to for the kids to make some super fun waffles!

The younger kids prepped the mix!

And the older kids very carefully made the waffles! 

We topped the waffles with crushed walnuts and sliced apples :)

Thank you amazing waffle chefs!

Thank you so much to Mama Parham for prepping and painting all the recycled cardboard for our collage canvases!

Guest teacher Liam helped us make some fairy tale origami!

Will a heart shaped wand blow a heart shaped bubble? Let's find out!

We've been learning Spanish words for our body parts with Mama Annalise!

Big thanks to Mama Sara, one of our kind library helpers, for bringing in some of our favorite books about wolves!

​There is a big difference between feeling an emotion and becoming it. When we “are” an emotion, we react with no control over our thoughts, feelings or actions. When we can feel and identify an emotion we can consciously choose to regulate our behavior.

The Feeling Buddies and books help children learn to identify what they are feeling and practice self regulation tools. As children practice empathy and comfort their Feeling Buddies through a range of emotions, they learn helpful language that eventually becomes their inner speech for self-regulation, emotional wellbeing and healing.

Visit Conscious Discipline for free resources or to buy your own feeling buddies and books for home!

The feeling buddies live in the peace corner of the classroom and we have been practicing with them by mirroring the different emotions and helping our buddies through their feelings with our words and empathy.

When we notice that we are in a big feeling our first step in self regulation is through our breath. Here are some of the favorite breaths we like to practice together, try some at home!

​I put my hands on my head.  I take a deep breath and fill up my balloon. I let the air out slowly with a fun pbpbpbpbpb sound.

​I hold my arms out straight and squeeze them tight as I breathe in.  I relax my fists and breathe out with a shhhhshshsh sound.

​I cross my legs.  I cross my arms.  I put my tongue on the roof of my mouth.  I take a deep breath into my belly.

These feeling cards help us to identify an even more subtle range of emotions and broaden our emotional vocabulary. We enjoyed picking cards, acting out the emotion, and having our friends guess what we are feeling.

We explored our feelings through the medium of art and music, painting in response to songs with different emotional themes.

​
​Self portraits

Self portraits are  a creative way for children to develop their observational, expressive, and reflective skills. The kids loved studying their faces in the mirror and trying out different facial expressions.

Here are a few of our faves!

We loved picking out different affirmation cards and creating yoga poses to go with them!

​I AM STRONG

​I AM CONNECTED

​I AM AWESOME!

​I AM INSPIRED

I AM HAPPY

​I AM CALM

​Then we were inspired to create our own unique affirmation cards!

A great way to learn how to process our emotions is to develop our capacity to be in the present moment with our senses. A wonderful practice to tap into our senses is through animal awareness exercises. These adorable finger puppets make the experience even more fun!

Little Owl teaches us how to watch like an owl...

Let’s try to expand our senses and watch the world like an owl. Stand still and find an object straight ahead of you to focus on. Imagine your eyes are stuck in place, and cannot move from side to side. If you find yourself looking away from your object or focus point, bring your vision (and your eyes) back to center. Without moving your eyes (and while focusing on your object) notice what else is visible: you can likely see the sky or ceiling, and the ground or floor. You’ve just found your peripheral vision, and your owl eyes!
​
Practice building on this by noticing the farthest thing you can see to the left, and to the right while still keeping your eyes focused on that first object. Try lifting your hands into the air in front of you, and wiggling your fingers. Keep your eyes focused on your original object, and slowly move your hands away from your central field of vision, and towards your peripheral vision to the left, and right. How long can you continue to see your wiggling fingers? Can you see them if they are 45 degrees from your central object, how about 90? 
(Muddy Sneakers)​

​Many animals native to North Carolina have a sense of hearing much more powerful than ours, including the White-Tailed Deer. To listen like a deer, cup your hands (with your fingers all together) and put them behind your ears. This amplifies even the smallest sounds whether you’re in a forest, your backyard, or your living room! To test out your “deer ears,” listen for a noise without assistance and give your senses a boost by putting your cupped hands up to your ears. Are sounds louder when you listen like a deer? Can you hear bird calls, rustling leaves, or croaking toads more clearly? To test out the distance of your “deer ear” amplification, find a family member to be your “noisemaker.” Put your deer ears up, stand facing your noisemaker, and close your eyes. Have your family member make an animal noise and take a few steps backward. Raise your hand every time you hear your noisemaker and test out how far away they can get before you no longer hear them!

​Little Fox shows us how to walk like a fox...

 Many wild animals have incredibly sensitive feet that allow them to walk silently through the forest. Foxes such as North Carolina’s native Grey Fox are especially good at sneaking softly through the woods. To explore your sense of touch through fox walking:​

When you fox-walk, you will feel the ground before actually putting your weight on that foot. As you practice, try to freeze mid-step like a fox might. Imagine you are a fox and you hear another animal look at you, or you hear the alarm call of a bird. As you walk, feel for sticks that might break under you: then pick your foot up and place it in a new spot before the stick snaps. Remember, move slowly.​

​The rabbit is the animal with the most developed sense of smell. Through their noses rabbits pick up information from their environment. I wonder what you can smell and tell about your environment when you smell like a rabbit?​

Little Snake shows us how to fully taste the air around us. Can we smell with our tongues?

Snakes use their tongues to smell their surroundings. Most snakes have poor eyesight and must rely on their other senses to help them out. Can you use your tongue to smell your surroundings? What do you taste in the air? What can you sense about this place with your sense of taste?

After some practice we performed a puppet show for the younger kids to teach them the animal awareness exercises too.

In one of our weekly experiments, the kids were given a large assortment of materials and supplies. Without the teacher's help they discussed, designed and executed an experiment of their choice.

We tried a new flour mix and they made a delightful new creation…. Not quite a cookie, a little like a muffin - the kids call them ‘cookins’!

Mix together 1.5 cups nut & seed flour with 1 cup coconut sugar, 1 cup stevia sweetened chocolate chips, 1 egg, 1/2 cup coconut oil, and 1 tsp vanilla. Dollop onto a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper and bake at 350 for 10 to 15 minutes.

​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
• 1/2 cup raisins

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• In a large mixing bowl, add all of the ingredients except for the raisins. Whisk until everything is evenly combined.
• Add the raisins 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 basic law of children's creativity is that its value lies not in its results, not in the product of creation, but in the process itself."
- Lev Vygotsky

We love to offer creative activities in which there is emphasis put on the process of creating, not on the end result. Process based learning is a holistic approach where the entire process of learning is taken as a whole, as opposed to teaching to specific individualized targets.

Process art projects are a wonderful example of process based learning experiences. Process art is child-led, choice-driven, open-ended, and celebrates the experience of discovery. The final product of process art will have no right or wrong answers and will be unique and original. 

​​Process based learning weaves beautifully into the Layered Curriculum Approach in other subject areas too!

Bright Stars
Estrellas Brillantes

Falling Stars
​Estrellas Fugaces

Learning to read and add fractions is much more fun with brownies :)

Mix dry and wet ingredients separately then combine and pour mixture into a parchment paper lined 8x8 baking dish. Bake at 350 for 15 to 18 minutes.

​How many blueberries do you guess are in 1 cup?

Wow! 62!!

Mix together the following ingredients then scoop into muffin pan and bake at 350 for 18 to 20 minutes.

Huge thanks to Mama Christy-Lynn for sharing this delicious homemade sourdough bread with us!