Peace gave us the seasons

Pictures taken by: Patricia de Anguera 

The fall leaves for most of us are now just a passing memory for this season.

 Each fall brings such a beauty as every tree, branch, and bush displays its own 
unique luminosity.

Every morning on my drive to work, I watched the world change right before me. 

 Around every corner was yet, another tree, of brilliant radiance.

This fall had so many magical moments with my classroom too. The children really opened up to the world of fall and all its beauty. I received comments from my parents about their daily outings with the children and how we were all experiencing this season of beauty together. 

   The thought kept murmuring in my mind;"Surely,the light today in this tree has to be more beautiful than the one I saw yesterday? "

Fall has to be my favorite season of the year?"

The colors are so beautiful. This fall has filled my heart with such deep love, gratitude and with a humble heart I can surrender more easily to that greater power of spirit all around us. 

Or then again, is it winter with the sparkling snow or maybe springtime with the delicate cherry blossoms falling like a delicate floral snow showers. Is this my favorite season?

As I chuckle I can recall so vividly this past summer photo a day project, with large warm beds of lavender aroma that filled my soul to the core?" I just cant make up my mind which season I like the best. . 

I have had the thought that all this beauty is from an astral memory. You may begin to ask, what is an astral memory? "The astral universe, made of various subtle vibrations of light and color, is hundreds of times larger than the material cosmos."

What type of a memory can linger so long in our hearts? What type of memory 
opens up all our senses by looking at these astral colors of leaves? This is beginning to feel like a heavenly memory that can touch us so deeply and we can experience it at any moment during our day.

Several days after meditation, I pondered all these thoughts while having a  
daily shower of beauty opening up every part of my being. 

I am not sure I will ever really know from my rational mind. But I can reveal in sharing 
this deep inner love with my students and all whom I come in contact with. It comes from 
a deeper sense of knowing something that is beyond myself. The deepest longing 
of the soul is to feel that spirit everywhere. 

In my classroom this month,  I have been teaching one of the original 

chants written by Paramhansa Yogananda: Oh God Beautiful 

One of the little boys in our class was outside under the large maple trees. 

He gently, looked up to the sky, the meadow, and began to chant:"I get it now,"as if 

light-bulb, went off in his mind. 

"God is everywhere. Everywhere you look." How profound this statement

for a four year old. How long did it take all of us to realize this?

I know for me, it took a very long time. 

I leave you with that thought of inspiration and I hope that 

your experience of Divine Mothers presence this fall was as angelic as
ours was in the Pacific Northwest. 

"All the World is My Friend"

Working together

Every September I begin our year with the unit: "All the world is my friend." This is a song written by: Nayaswami Kriyananda.  This has such a broad way of introducing new friendships, cooperation and harmony in our daily activities. 

The words to the song:

All the world is my friend

When I learn how to share my love.

When I stretch out my hand and smile,

Then I live from above. 

Here is the link to the music. 

The children begin to sing this from the first day of class. I offer books, puppet plays, yoga practices, games and art activities to bring in the theme for the month. 

This year I did a few new activities in case you read my October entry from 2012. 

Felting world balls

Integration of whole body drawing with our feet. When we draw with our feet, and switch to the hands it all seems easy. We draw with play dough, sand, in the air and on each others backs. This is so exciting to be silly with our new friends. 

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you. 

Sewing patterns with our friends

Harvesting sunflowers together from our school garden. 

Harvesting apples together at our Equinox celebration

Prayers together

Celebrations and parades

 This was our globe the children painted together.

One of the girls in my afternoon Prekindergarten class was coloring with our block beeswax crayons. She said to me: "These need to be cleaned." So I had told her about an idea that I heard and never thought I would have the opportunity to actually try it since I knew it might be time consuming. But we pulled out basic vegetable oil, and a small bowl.  We began to rub and rub. All the markings came off on our paper towels. It made hand made paper. It was so lovely and reminded me of all the felting projects that I love to do. I couldn't throw the paper away.



 So tore it up in small pieces and glued it as land continents on our globe.
This added another level of fun. We cut out many photos of animals that lived around the globe and glued them to our world.
The children also put a large floor puzzle together using the same principals of maps and habitats.




The mural had so many beautiful stages.


Here is the list from what a mural can accomplish in a classroom setting.

Celebration of harmony, cooperation, and joy in class. Dynamic tracing hands, right and left hands, cutting, pasting, geography, animal habitats, willingness to help others, gross and fine motor skills, sewing, sensory integration, grip control, recycling, singing , watercolor techniques, blotting, crayon resist, sponge painting, and blending.
One of the students as she helped me commented: " Wow, I had no idea, we did all that!
It is beautiful."

What a lovely way to honor our friendships and live in harmony with the world all around us.

Namaste,

Chandi

I am the bubble, make me the sea.

I am the bubble make me the sea..

Make me the sea,

Make me the sea.

Wave of the sea, dissolved in the sea

Wave of the sea, dissolved in the sea.

Oh, I am the bubble make me the sea.

The "wave of the sea", is our very last celebratory unit that we participate in our classroom. 

For the past 11 years, I had started the tradition of taking the children to the Puget Sound for our all school field trip.This year was no exception.  The Puget Sound is only fifteen minutes from our school. 

.  The children explored the Puget Sound seashore at low tide with teachers, parents, grandparents and friends.  

The next day in the classroom, I wanted the children to recreate the living tide pools that they saw. 

This is a two day project and begins with mixing:

3-4 cups of white flour

Enough dough to make the dough very sticky

One rectangular cardboard piece

Have the children apply the sticky flour to their cardboard

Let this dry flat in a cool space until the next day. 

So fun, sticky hands. 

The next day in class we all began to look at the pictures that we had taken from our 

the previous day at the beach. 

The children were reminded about all the tide pools and sea life they had viewed.

I gave them their dried play dough boards and we mixed several colors of paints. 

They were able to paint several textures and colors with sponges .

Textured sea stars were also added with a hot glue gun. 

I think their creations came alive and very real. 

Below is a chant written by Parmhansa Yogananda and is chanted by Swami Kriyananda in the 1950's 

We love this chant at the Living Wisdom School. We use this song particularly during this unit and our children know it well. It is often requested to sing repeatedly.

 I will leave you this evening with this beautiful chant. 

Blessings all

Chandi

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.    

 They were our friends just for a little while,

What glorious smiles on their faces as we shared our last precious moments of our school year together. 

Mother we thank you,

Your joy shines in everything. 

Open these channels so the world once more may sing. 

Channels: words and song by: Swami Kriyananda

Move all ye mountains that stand in my way.

This past spring I have had the joyful opportunity to expand my service with children and explore outings in nature more tangibly. These outings are happening outside of the classroom on weekends.

I was able to organize small groups of children between the ages of four through 10 years of age. I prepared a four hour program designed for using the outdoors as our classroom.  In this process, I was not only the teacher, but the students were instructing me.  In all cases, we all had such a beautiful time together. Each group brought something forward in me, as a nature instructor.

On my last excursion this past weekend, I had a brand new set of students that would be accompanying me on a two and half mile hike. This was not an easy task for this age group. It was a new location for me, and for some of the families.  I had emailed all the parents about the steep paths and warned them to remind the children that we would be climbing a mountain. I was very anxious about what might await us.

From the minute the children met, it was like an instant karmic bonding of old friends reacquainted.

On this trip, I had one older sibling that was just the kindest, loving and spiritual leader in guiding the children's energy. His smile could charm your heart away. He also knew the trail very well, and seemed to guide all of us to the hidden crevices, dips and treasures. The children were actually experiencing "every moment", as we like to call it. I never heard one complaint, or in-deference. They were joyfully skipping and singing songs from our classroom as we hiked together.

We started back up the hill after a quick round of the SuperConscious Living Exercises that I teach in our classroom. A serge of energy ran through our bodies. We climbed up the steep hill with power, energy, and vitality.

When I arrived home from our day together I was in a state or divine gratitude, joy, and inner bliss. It was indeed a humbling experience to be in the company of these great little souls.
These children were the instruments today. What a wonderful reminder for all of us.

In the days that followed this trip I have been watching children's open ended love of nature and outdoor play. It amazes to watch under all circumstances the sheer joy that radiates from their beings.

Recently I just came across an article about some of the benefits of children and nature. Here are some  quotes from that article I would like to pass along:

• Children with views of and contact with nature score higher on tests of concentration and self-discipline. The greener, the better the scores (Wells 2000, Taylor et al. 2002).
• Children who play regularly in natural environments show more advanced motor fitness, including coordination, balance and agility, and they are sick less often (Grahn, et al. 1997, Fjortoft & Sageie 2001).
• When children play in natural environments, their play is more diverse with imaginative and creative play that fosters language and collaborative skills (Moore & Wong 1997, Taylor, et al. 1998, Fjortoft 2000).

But another important factor that most children experience is that God whispers through the trees, through the babbling brooks, and the sounds of the ocean. Through these experiences children tune into their higher spiritual natures. They easily experience the higher cosmic consciousness we all seek.

"Everything in Nature is God's Artwork." Joseph(Bharat) Cornell

I am profoundly grateful in being able to share nature with our children.

May this be one of many more nature programs while climbing mountains together. 

Memories of our spring: a photo montage

Whenever the spring hits the Pacific Northwest, something happens to all of us. We get outside and begin to open up to the world all around us. So hence, it is with me too. I begin to expand outward and cherish natures beauty while slowly relinquishing  my commitment in sharing the Education for Life principals. Therefore, I will do my best to catch you up on some of our key activities this spring.

This has been a very busy time in our classroom with so many cherished activities that I needed to share. I can only touch on them lightly thus not to bore you with long lengthy lesson plans.

The month of March the children and all our teachers were busy with our Annual Living Wisdom Art Show. This year at the school for our main exhibit we all created a Monet's garden. The children in our class made the art sculpture with one of our fathers. This was the bridge in the garden, surrounded by a pond, a large willow tree, fish, birds, and lily pads. Each student in the school created something for the garden. It was spectacular!

The month of April the children were able to explore the human body. We spent several days on exploring the physical body. The children made their own bodies along with exploring how our hearts, lungs and brains function. 

The third week into the program we spent time exploring our spiritual body. We began a more advanced yoga program for calming our spirits. 

The third week into the program was also about keeping our bodies well and healthy.

Vibration and healing in our hands

What parts of the hand can heal our bodies?

Healing music and dance

Healing love and empathy. Here is our Pre-kindergarten baby. This is our french teacher, who now has a new baby to share with us in our classroom. 

Tibetan sound healing concert

Here we are making "\Aum" juice from all the spiritual fruits that we had all week. Yum!!





During the last week in April we celebrated " Earth day".

Next week is Mothers Day so we will have to share all our fun activities after our annual Mothers Day tea celebration.

May this spring bring you closer to the children in your life and fill our souls with many heartwarming memories.

Many Blessings,

Chandi