July 26, 2004

Dear Parents, 

Welcome to our last week of preschool.  This quarter has gone very quickly.  Gretchen and I adore your children and will miss them over4 this six week break.  The elementary school starts again on September 7th, however the preschool will start on September 14th.  There will be an orientation the week before school will start; you will receive information in the mail.

This week we will be doing a medley of all our favorite things to do at preschool.  Painting, clay, play dough, keeping cool with the water table, and anything else our little hearts desire.

Gretchen and I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for trusting us with your children.  We consider our relationship with your children sacred, they call us their teachers but we often feel that they are our teachers.  We are open to what they bring to Salmonberry, and it is an honor to be afforded the brief opportunity to help guide them toward their best life and to be included in their creative expression of self. 

We look forward to renewing our commitment to your children and their well-being in September.

Dacia Youngren has been helping as a substitute this past quarter, and we are grateful for how easy that has been.  Dacia is a perfect fit into our team and is familiar with Salmonberry and all its gifts.  We look forward to a continued relationship with Dacia in the coming year.

We would like to wish Maddy and Eve the greatest success in their new beginnings, we send Oliver on his way with love, and we will miss you all.  Many blessings await you in your new surroundings.

Until September, be well, drink lots of water, get wet and enjoy life.

May wonderful blessings, love,

Ethna and Gretchen

July 19, 2004

Dear Parents,

It is amazing to think we just have two weeks of school before our summer break.  The fall quarter will bring new children and changes.  Due to the growth of the preschool we are in the process of setting up systems to take care of parents and information pathways.  We are also applying to get a DHSH licensing which entails many changes that ultimately will be helpful.  In an effort to get this information to you all we will have an essential orientation before school starts.  We are inviting comments in writing to assist us in creating this orientation.  If you could take the time to look back on your experience with your preschool so far and write your suggestions down we would be very grateful.  Your opinion and how we can do things better will assist us to be the best that we can for all of our families new and old.

We have been working on peace and conflict resolution.  As I feel this is a lifetime process, these themes will be woven through our classroom activities.

Some of the children walked around the preschool and recorded different sounds.  This week we will be trying to identify those sounds and continue to take turns recording and identifying.  Expanding our listening skills seems to be an integral part of creating the peaceful classroom we desire.  An extension of all of this is community building; we began to create a collage representing our school community.  Gretchen will be introducing some music curriculum to reinforce this theme.

This Wednesday, July 21st (weather permitting) we would like to take a field trip and walk down to the Emmanuel Episcopal Church.  There is a concert at noon, Greg Brooks and Madrone, a sax duo.  We will set off to walk at 11:15 AM, the concert is at 12:00 noon, and we would bring our lunches.  To be able to do this we would need at least 2 parent volunteers.  It would be best if children were picked up at the church at 1:00 PM instead of school.  Please let us know by Tuesday if you can volunteer.

Thursday, July 22nd is our school lunch bar-b-q.  The board will be providing the food and are happy to be doing the work.  However if you want to bring something you are welcome.  We encourage as many family members as possible to attend.  This truly reinforces the sense of community we want for our children.  Come at 12:00 noon and enjoy our community spirit.

Gretchen and I continue to love the opportunities we have with your beloved children and look forward to Thursday to celebrate with you all.

Blessings, 

Ethna

July 5, 2004

Dear Parents,

Happy Summer everyone!  I hope you all survived the busy holiday weekend!  The big kids and some of our children had a great Pioneer Parade ride.  I joined marching with the Pink for Peace group of course.  I also enjoyed some amazing sitar music from India and have a great CD to share with the children.

I am constantly struck by the fact that there are so many ways to approach life.  When I do not get caught in thought patterns that tell me there is only one right way, or a best way to do anything.  Each person is here to find their own way.  I am encouraged by spending time with your children to constantly discover new ways, to experiment.

As Ethna and I watch the precious beings we call preschoolers try new things, using their intuition (attuning their energy to the task or to the subject or object of study), their whole bodies, and every ounce of intellectual power they have, I try to remember not to interfere too much, for this is how they discover their way and what works best for them.  It is so difficult for adults to know how the child's mind is structured and how it works.  We can never escape our own perception which comes from our adult brains.  We can remember what it was like when we were children, but still, we filter our memories through our present brain state which is so different from that of our children.  We can never really experience the world as they do, I believe, if ew take a purely intellectual approach.

Going beyond the intellect, though, into parts of ourselves that have been traditionally thought of as our spirits, or our souls, we are more likely to meet children on common ground.  Our larger selves, (or those parts of us which are expanded, connected, and seem to know things without knowing how they know) use mind and brain to function in this world, but they are not confined by these.  This brings me to our discussions in class of our Little Me and Big Me which began with a puppet show last week.  It seemed to open up a whole area for the children and some seemed more comfortable with it than others.  To depict the Big Me, I put a pink sheet over my head with a colorful headdress on top.  This, I was told, was a little scary.

I am trying to get across to the children that there exists this bigger part of themselves that they can have access to anytime they wish.  The characters in the story were unable to get help from their parents, and thus were left alone to figure out what to do.  One of them had a dream in which their Big Me offered to help them.  Big Me told them it was always available, anytime they needed help.  We will continue with this theme this week to see where it takes us.

We will also continue with our study of feelings.  We've almost finished our feeling masks and will be doing movement and lots of improvisation with them.  Listening and hearing will also be explored this week through a guessing game with different recorded sounds.  Please let us know if you have questions about our work with your children.  We are teaching what we are because there seems to be a call for it, but we can only bring this information forward according to how we understand and experience it.  Ethna and I check in with each other constantly.  Are we pushing our way of seeing upon the children, or are we offering it as one way, and allowing them to explore and develop their own way based on what works for them?  We always strive for the latter, but please let us know if you are at all uncomfortable with what we are presenting to your children.

Dates to remember: Wednesday, July 14, Parent meeting.  Monday, July 12, 3:10 pm, Board meeting.

Blessings and Peace,

Gretchen

June 28, 2004

Dear Parents,

I hope all of you got out this last weekend and enjoyed the weather.  At school we will be spending as much time outside as possible, so appropriate dress, sunscreen, etc. is a must.  We will have some extra sunscreen at school in case you forget to put it on at home - just let us know.

As Ethna let you know what a blessing it is to work with me, I would like to say also, that I feel the same about her.  We are also blessed to be in an environment that empowers us to let our best shine through, and we work at creating this environment for the children.  For them to know at all times that they are loved, no matter what, is crucial.  This means for us parents and teachers that we learn to transcend our small selves (our ego) and to consistently relate to our children through the perception of our bigger selves (that which is light and love).

Through story, puppets, and masks which the children will create, we will explore these themes for the next few weeks.  Using the terms little me and big me, we will examine the ways we can learn to tune into the parts of ourselves that feel expansive, always loving, and constantly connected with everything.

Ethna started us out last week with lots of practice in listening.  We are learning that when we pay loving attention to our friends, to nature, and to our inner selves, we can feel more connected and thus more love.  We will practice being quiet in nature and will continue to practice loving, respectful listening to our friends.

Ethna also did a beatiful job introducing the children to conflict resolution last week, and we will continue with this.  They may not yet be able to pronounce the word conflict, but they are beginning to understand its meaning.  Ethna and I are getting into the habit of saying, "It looks like we're having a conflict here, what do you think we should do about it?"  Rather than step in and try to solve it for the children right away, we are helping them to learn to recognize conflict and to resolve it peacefully themselves.

We would like Salmonberry to be a place where everyone feels empowered to express and act upon their greatest selves.  This includes parents.  Somehow, June's parent meeting slipped by Ethna and I as we are getting used to the schedule.  The next one will be on Wednesday, July 14, directly after school.  Ethna and I also recognize that when we set the agenda, very often parents' voices get lost.  We want to let you know what is going on, but we would like to hear more about what Salmonberry is like from your perspective, and ways it can work better for you.  We can explore ways to do this.  Email might be helpful to use before the meeting to make sure everyone can contribute to setting the agenda.  Also, there will be a board meeting on Monday July 12.  You can come even if you are not on the board.  It is a good way to get more involved, fulfill volunteer hours, and get to know others who are dedicated to making Salmonberry a great place to be.

A teacher from the mainland stopped by Pyewacket, where I work on Fridays, and got wind that I worked at Salmonberry.  She said her friend and her friends looked in at the school from the gate, but were afraid to just come in off the street to visit.  "Your school is what we all wish our school could be," she told me.  I came away from the conversation with lots of gratitude for what we have created here.  Salmonberry is truly a special place and it is each of us sharing our true selves, talents, and gifts that makes it so special.  If you feel an impulse to share something, to do something, to contribute anything to make Salmonberry even better, please don't hesitate.  Just do it.  If each of us learns to constantly ask, "What can I give?" rather than "What can I get?" we can create a world where we transcend our small selves and where the "bigger us" is always expressed and celebrated.

Blessings and peace,

Gretchen

June 7, 2004

Dear Parents,

I forgot to thank all those parents who helped out at our work party.  It was a grand success with shelves built, garden weeded, chickens taken care of, gazebo painted, gate built, attic organized, and many other small and large jobs taken care of.  This school runs beautifully when we work together.  It is great to model this sort of community for our children.  Thanks to all the seen and unseen helpers.

This week our focus is still on Healing, Love and Shapes.  I am laughing that I wondered how I was going to incorporate learning about shapes into a study on healing and love.  The circle is the obvious example of a shape that can bring people together.  When we form a circle together in a group, it helps us connect with one another.  A circle is found in so many forms of nature.  Circles bring us back to where we started.  To so many indigenous groups, the circle is sacred.

We also have lots of circle songs and dances we will be doing this week.  Come in to check out our crystals, the different shapes they've formed.  The children spent lots of time last week investigating the beauty and energy of these amazing gifts from nature.

We will continue to talk about things we love, people we love, things we love to do, and will continue to explore love in all its different forms.  We will take time to notice what it feels like to appreciate what we love and be able to share those good feelings with each other.  We've been talking about what keeps us separate from each other, and things we can do that help us remember we are connected.  We talked about how music brings us together and can be healing last week, and we will continue looking at, thinking about, and experiencing things that connect us and help us remember our circle of love.

Peace to all,

Gretchen