Tag Archives: school
day 2764: playing flute at school assembly.
odin’s school has a regular “all grade” assembly where the first through eighth classes perform a variety of artistic endeavors in front of the whole school and assembled parents. this week, odin’s class played an orchestrated flute song.
in addition to the general awesomeness of seeing him play orchestrated music, it struck what an ingenious trick the assembly is to get the kids used to thinking that it’s completely normal to play in front of an audience.
it’s such a great confidence builder that will certainly do them well later later in life.
day 2645: on conquering fear and doubt and casting dragons out.
odin went to sleep repeating the refrain sung by the entire school in the michaelmas assembly:
When within I conquer fear and doubt / michael in heaven casts the dragon out!
he said he wasn’t afraid in the slightest bit about standing up and singing in front of the whole school and all the parents.
he said simply, “i love that song.” before falling fast asleep.
i love that he was standing next to freya when he was singing the song and came home and probably saw his magnificently metaphorical birthday box with the dragon slaying motif.
talk about myths to live by!
day 2518: The Last Day of the Last Year of Kindergarten.
sigh. the day finally arrived. odin’s last day of kindergarten. a bittersweet day to be sure. of course, odin is nothing but excited because not only is it the last day of school, but the Summer Birthday Kids also collectively celebrate their birthdays.
the parents of the Summer Birthday Kids are also excited because they get to have a special morning with the kids where we hang out with them in the play yard before the bell rings and go for the children on their morning walk and watch a special little celebration filled with laugther and songs and stories.
as is quite typical of a waldorf education kindergarten morning at his school, odin begins by climing his favoritest tree!
i’ll bet he’s climbed this tree every day for the past two years ( for those that don’t know, in a waldorf school kids usually don’t start first grade until they are seven, so odin is finishing his second year of kindergarten ).
he’s looking for a caterpillar that he discovered in the tree yesterday and was very eager for us to see it, but alas, the caterpillar had wandered off.
looooooots of running and laughter in the morning. it’s seems like A Proper Way to start the day and i can’t imagine it any other way ( sitting at a desk?! ).
then we went on a walk and watched the children empty their compost into the compost buckets and even got a little tour of the greenhouse where the older kids are growing all sorts of green things for the school garden.
and then it was time to take off the outside shoes and light candles and listen to songs and a wonderful story told by Miss Shannon about birthdays and make music and watch odin walk over a “Rainbow Bridge” laden with silk scarves to mark the passing of The Kindergarten Years ( no cameras allowed for that part 🙂
’twas, indeed, a wonderful morning.
day 2238: wherein we learn one of us has a hard time getting in and out of the monkey bars.
after our search for jasper we spent some time hanging out at the elementary school of my youth ( which was named after rose m. gaffney who began teaching in 1897 and i often have wondered if she ever sent any of my relatives to the principle’s office ).
the school looks quite a bit different than when i was a kid, but it was fun to watch odin play on the monkey bars and imagine that they might – just maybe – be the same bars i played on when i was his age.
being on elementary school property, it’s always good to learn a lesson. and mine for the day? that it’s a lot harder to get *out* from inside the bars than i remember it being 30 years ago! as luck would have it, i had the camera so unfortunately it was impossible to document my attempts to escape 🙂
odin plays the ol’ game of see-if-i-can-kick-the-camera-while-on-the-swing. someday he’s going to win.
day 2153: odin’s last day of school!
sigh. didn’t the school year just start?
and yes, at odin’s school they wear silk capes, walk over a "Rainbow Bridge" laden with silk scarves, and receive felt finger puppets to mark the passing of the school year 🙂