Rhythm and Kindness

9/17/2025

In the beginning of the year we are laying the foundation of our learning community as we tune in to our daily rhythm and co-create a culture of kindness.

Our daily rhythm alternates periods of concentration and expansion, as if in a breathing rhythm where there is inhaling and exhaling. In the inhaling or breathing-in phase the child directs their attention to an activity that basically relates him to themselves (drawing, water painting, eating…). In the exhaling or breathing-out period, the child relates mainly to the surrounding world (free play, gross motor movements, guided activities etc.). For each breathing-in period the child needs a breathing-out period and so a pattern and balance is established.

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
Creative Arts
Circle Time
Snack with Social/Emotional Learning
Free Play
Guided Activity
Dance Party!
Lunch
Story Time

Art

As the children arrive, they put their meals and water bottles in the baskets and have art invitations and manipulatives to create with.

We love process based art!

The kids keep asking for more finger painting! It's so wonderful for fine motor development and creative expression.

Circle

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.

It takes a lot of cooperation to lift the parachute together and fly our little animal friends high!

In circle we have had many conversations with all the groups of how can we create a healthy, fun, and safe learning community for all here at the Children's Garden. What are the agreements we can create that will help us grow from a "me" to a "we" community?

In a Caring Circle we all took turns sharing something really kind about a friend. SO many sweet things were shared. Then we shared something kind about ourselves and one child said "I really love my heart."

We have continued to discuss what kind of agreements we need so that we can all have fun and feel safe. Some of the ideas the kids came up with are: no hitting/kicking/pushing, be nice, listen to the teacher, no sitting on each others heads, no yelling in someones ear, take turns, take care of the toys, listen to each other, don't take each others food, don't grab toys from each other, tell a teacher if you are hurt or scared, use your big voice, gentle hands, keep the classroom tidy so we don't trip...

From all our conversations we were able to consolidate all of our thoughts into 3 simple positive agreements:

Be Safe
Be Kind
Listening Ears

To put all of our love and energy into our agreements we created a collaborative art piece with all the groups which we then turned into a community reminder.

Do we forget our agreements sometimes? Of course we do! We are humans :) We can gently remind one another and learn to grow from a "me" to a "we" when practicing agreements.

Thank you parents for talking about these agreements with the kids at home, it really helps us remember at Children's Garden!

Celebrating Kindness

The Kindness Jar is a practice that helps us to spread kindness in our community. Any time we see someone else doing something kind or helpful we put a pompom in the jar. What you focus on grows and a momentum of kindness, generosity, and helpfulness is growing fast. Once the jar is full of pompoms we are throwing a kindness party to celebrate growing kindness in the world!

Highly recommend creating a kindness jar at home to celebrate all the ways we see our family showing up with kindness everyday and then doing something really special together to celebrate kindness once the jar is full up. You don't have to use pompoms, could be coins, marbles, leaves...

SEL Snack

At snack time we like to read a social emotional learning book and talk together about identifying our emotions and healthy ways to respond to them.

Free Play!

Foraging for Wood Sorrel!

Collaborative building play

Digging for treasures

A completely kids-built and run slide + obstacle course! Learning teamwork and sharing as they practiced taking turns and staying in line.

We love to play house!

Sweet new friends :)

Guided Activities

Tinkering Shed

Myth & Magic

The kids loved reading this book about mixing halves of mythical creatures and were inspired to collage their own magical creatures

Check out our magical creatures!

Montessori Lacing

We learned about lacing and got to practice with fun animals + shapes! Weaving through the holes helps fine-motor development as well as hand-eye coordination. We are ready for some plastic needle and thread next.

Science All Around Us

We found an Imperial Moth caterpillar! We got to learn about the life cycle of caterpillars and build a cool terrarium to keep her safe until she transforms into a moth

We researched what she needs to survive and gave her moist soil to burrow in and maple leaves to eat

The bunnies and chickens love being cared for by the children!

A Little Performance, A Little Science, A Lot of Fun

We were so excited about our caterpillar friend and learning about butterflies, we did some dress-up and theatre to explore what transforming into and out of a cocoon feels like.

In the Garden

We set off on an adventure in search of Lady Goldenrod...

And found some tasty mint on the way!

Where is that Goldenrod?

There she is!

Goldenrod Medicine

We dried the goldenrod and then covered the dry plant with oil to make an oil infusion which we will make into a healing salve for ouchies and bruises.

As the children were mixing the flowers into the oil, we invited them to offer a magic spell, and they started chanting "kindness, kindness, kindness..."! We promise there was no teacher intervention here! And goldenrod salve is indeed very kind to our skin!

Pumpkin Pear Pecan Muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked and mashed pumpkin
1/2 cup almond butter
2 large eggs
2 Tbsp avocado oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup cacao powder
1/4 cup coconut sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup chopped pears
1/4 cup smashed pecans
1 pomegranate de-seeded
1 tsp coconut oil for coating muffin pan

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and coat muffin pan with coconut oil
Add all of the muffin ingredients, except the pears, pecans, pomamegranate seeds, and coconut oil, and mix well.
Add in half the pears and pecans and mix the batter lightly.
Scoop the batter into the coated muffin pan, filling each slot just over half way full, and top the muffins with the remaining pears and pecans.
Place the muffins in preheated oven and bake at 350 degrees for 20-22 minutes.
After baking, cool the muffins for a few minutes in the pan, then transfer them to a wire cooling rack. Once cool, decorate with pomegranate seeds.

Pomegranates... training the next generation of surgeons with focus and fine motor control!

Smashing pecans is so empowering!

Have you ever seen such joyful whiskers?

We affectionately refer to these young chefs as the three amigos :)

The Safe Place

The safe place is an area where the children can go if they are having big feelings and have the space and tools to practice self-regulation. It’s also a sweet soft space to play quietly or read a book. For more details on how we use the safe place see our previous blog on Emotional Intelligence.