"Inside Out": Mother we thank you!

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Mother we thank you!

Summer's Glow Original Watercolor by Elaine Frenett, Ashland, Oregon

Today we celebrated our last class for the school year. In the past two weeks we finished up our garden unit and spent some time with creating our habitats for the new caterpillars.

Divine Mother always has her own timing while working simultaneously collaborating with nature.
We were late in the season to start this project but our caterpillars hatched just in time for our last day of school.
It was a perfect day, to release our butterflies as our last ceremony of the year.

We had many fun activities leading up to this moment.

Creating three dimensional watercolor paintings

Creating our butterfly habitat in the classroom.

Sharing Nature with Children:
Duplication Game
The items were shown to the children and then they explored in the forest for the same items to duplicate.

Caterpillar stories, math games, and songs

Yoga postures and stories about Gerdy and Caty. Gerdy is a goose and Caty was a caterpillar. I created a yoga story that was told all week in class about how the caterpillar and the goose becoming fast friends. .

This was a very sweet video that our children were able to watch. They were only three years old when this was taken, so it was exciting for them see how fast they had grown in a year's time.

But the most exciting was for the children to watch the birth and unfolding of these amazing creatures. We were all in a state of reverence as we carefully set them free today. As Divine Mother's perfect metaphor, it was time to set the butterflies free and for our children to spread their wings and fly too.