Our First Year

Week 2

This week we began core skills. The group took to this like fish to water diving deeply and working hard.   While we spent plenty of time on core skills we also spent time exploring Opechee Park, working on conflict resolution and respecting our peers, developing SMART goals, and learning about the Challenge Doughnut and recognizing when we are in our safe zone, challenge zone or panic zone. Mr. TJ told us an Abenaki Indian story about the night sky and he also read a few stories including My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook.   And, of course, we enjoyed our weekly hike. This week we went to Chamberlain-Reynolds Memorial Forest. While hiking we saw a young Bald Eagle, a Loon, and many different amphibians. We also discovered gold thread (or Canker root) and found a tree that was scarred from a black bear's claws!         Core Skills with Montessori Materials   Gratitude circle at the end of the day     Climbing on "the worm" at Opechee Park!   Impressive focus during Core Skills time!

Week 1

We have all both survived and enjoyed our first week! As with the start of any journey it has been filled with challenges alongside great successes!   We had our first music class. The Eagles really enjoy their time with Miss Karen and her dog Buddy. She showed us around her studio and let us play drums, pianos and taught us about the scales.   The Eagles learned about Freedom Levels this week and Studio Maintenance. We continue to be extremely impressed with how they all handle studio maintenance.   We created and filmed our very first Lib Dub music video this week! Mr. TJ is working on the final edits this weekend and we will be able to share a link to the YouTube video on Monday! (Teaser - there is lots of silly string!)   This week we also went on a hike in Hamlin Park. The hike was beautiful and we saw many red spotted salamanders and mushrooms. Some of the Eagles even tried some wild Indian cucumber. The trip ended in playing in the stream at the trail head where the Eagles found fish and frogs and explored the woods.   Next week we look forward to another hike with the location to be determined. This will be on Thursday so on that day if the Eagles could come with sneakers and light (in weight) lunches it would be appreciated.   We ended the week with a discussion on how everyone has a bucket that they can fill up with good thoughts and deeds to make themselves feel good throughout the day. We talked about how sometimes, when you are mean to someone, you are steeling good things from their bucket and also emptying your own bucket at the same time. We all drew pictures of things that fill our buckets then filled up each other's buckets with the drawings.   Below is a picture of our first D.E.A.R. time! (Drop Everything And Read)