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

Many Hands Make a Miracle

Many Hands make a miracle

People climbing together

Soon we reach to the pinnacle of every mountain peak

we travel as one,

We lift our hands to welcome the sun. 
Song by: Swami Kriyananda (J.Donald Walters) 

The Living Wisdom School is celebrating our annual all school art show this weekend. 

It is always a labor of love in planning, teaching, and exhibiting all the artwork collectively. This year especially the teachers have really collaborated to present art in many diverse ways.

Each class choose a different Modern or Contemporary artist to focus their inspiration. 

We also came up with the idea of combining all the children towards making an all school Monet garden. This will display the art together from each classroom. 

This is one of the special outreach events we do at Living Wisdom School. Eight years ago we came up with the idea to expand and share our school with the greater community. This event gives such a joyful expression of our children and a glimpse into their lives at the Living Wisdom School.

This past month, one of my students was not present in my classroom on the day we painted our major focal piece for the show. I had talked with her father and asked if she could stay after class, so I
 might guide her through the art lesson.

She did an amazing job that I wanted it to be a surprise for her parents. 

Well low and behold, her art was featured in the local Shoreline News this week, so I had to tell them.

This was done by one of the pre-kindergartners in our classroom. 

This was the second piece painted by one of our students in the 4th grade class. 

We have an amazing staff this year at the Living Wisdom School and I an extremely honored to be working with these inspiring woman. Many of our teachers are also full time mothers and grandmothers.  So it is not just at work that they are serving our children unceasingly, but they head home and have to put on their "moms and grandmother hats too." 

The song written above really finishes out the whole theme:

Soon we reach to the pinnacle, of every mountain peak

we travel as one.

We life our hands to welcome the sun and a wonderful accomplishment.

Thank you Living Wisdom Staff for sharing so much of yourself while
serving all our students and families . 

 Bless you all.
. 

A blade of grass

Said a blade of grass to an autumn leaf, “You make such a noise falling! You scatter all my winter dreams.”

Said the leaf indignant, “Low-born and low-dwelling! Song-less  peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the sound of singing.”

Then the autumn leaf lay down upon the earth and slept. And when spring came she waked again — and she was a blade of grass.

And when it was autumn and her winter sleep was upon her, and above her through all the air the leaves were falling, she muttered to herself, “O these autumn leaves! They make such a noise! They scatter all my winter dreams.”

Khalil Gibran

Today we tried something new in the classroom with the pre-kindergarten class. I wanted to introduce wet wool felting as our handiwork this month. I love the textures, colors, and how the project changes shape right before your eyes. It is very dynamic. I also like to teach children the early stages of non-attachment. Working with wool is a process that has its own life. You have to remain open to the joy that lies before you, not the outcome. It never fails to amaze me the beauty of how felting turns out. 

We began with a fresh batch of wool to touch and feel.

We carefully placed roving wool of all colors of grass into our plastic bags.

We then added hot water, and soap to the wool inside the bags . Carefully we got all the air out and closed the bag tightly. 

Then through pounding and carefully massaging the baggies, the wool felted together like grass in their baggies. 

After each piece is completely felted you rinse out the soap with cold water and let dry on a surface. 

They dry in a day. We are using these for an exhibit at our art show coming up on Saturday. 

Wool felt pieces drying

I guess you will have to come to our art show to see the finished exhibit displayed? 

It’s almost spring and the blades of grass are awakening. 

Joy to you!

March flowers so soft and fragile

 Spring hasn't quite hit the Pacific Northwest yet, but we are getting prepared for our 8th Annual Living Wisdom School Art Show next weekend. I wanted to share a fun art project that we finished this week.

This year's theme for our art show is called:"The World of a Child's Imagination!"

The faculty at the school has selected a modern day artist for their students classroom collaboration and the all school exhibition.  Our class chose Georgia O'Keeffe's florals for our inspiration. We have used many different combinations of art materials. I wanted the children to experience many types of materials and mediums. We used pastels, tempura, watercolors, acrylics, Mod Podge, felt, embroidery threads, watercolor pens, art dough, liquid starch, and we also created a wood sculpture with one of our dads.  I will feature the art show next week after our installation on March 16th.

 I am frequently asked how to create children's spiritual art curriculum but until I write it all down somehow formally, this blog will have to do.  Often my inspiration is not mine, but from the divine and by listening to our children. I create projects from what I know they will love to share, and create. I  want them to be successful but also building new skills that they can master for a sense of accomplishment. I like to use beautiful art materials and I am very choosy about what is good for a child's energy and their spiritual vibration. The activities are prepared for our children to feel beauty through their art projects and to look at art not as a mere activity to fill time in the daily classroom, but to uplift their spirits.

Today I wanted to feature one of the projects that we just finished. I loved the way they turned out and wanted to share with you.

One of our teachers had cut out large petals from coffee filters. The children then chose six petals for each flower, attaching them in the center with Mod Podge. We had been working on the placement of petals for about two weeks, so this was easy now for them to attach together in a circular pattern. I also had the primrose on the table for them to see how flowers actually grow.

These flowers were allowed to dry until the next day. Each child began to watercolor each of the petals. We gave them only two colors so they could create only one secondary color.  I wanted the colors to be calming pastels that were not too bright. The flowers were then allowed to dry another day. 

 Then each child took their own flower and draped it over a plastic bottle. A rubber band was secured at the top of the bottle.  In some cases a rubber band was secured at the bottom too. This made it easier for the child to hold while painting. Then with large strokes of Mod Podge, they painted the flower all over again. The flowers were molded and covered in the Mod Podge.
The flowers were left upside down to dry overnight on the plastic bottles.

Small pieces of felt were then cut on a diagonal. The children glued embroidery threads for the stamen of their flowers. 

We took the upside down flower off of the plastic bottle. 

They were fun to now mold and shape. 

The small piece of felt was tightly rolled up into a small cylinder.  

These were attached with tacky glue inside the center of each molded flower. We tried several methods but found just dipping into the glue, like a sushi roll worked the best. 

This was a very soothing activity for the children. I had two little girls working quietly for about 45 minutes on finishing the centers of each flower.

These are so beautiful. They could be used for any type of event; baby shower, wedding shower or decoration in a child's room. They are fun for everyone.

All the floral activities have brought a little spring into our classroom even though the weather hasn't quite caught up to us.

I can't wait to share all of our activities for the show. But if I did then, we wouldn't have a large crowd to visit our 8th annual show at Eastwest Bookshop, March 16th from 4-6p.m.

Please come by the show and say hello to our artists.

Until next week.
Blessings,
Chandi

Building in new habits of love and gratitude for this new year

The new year has begun and the other day my husband took down our tree so fast I wasn't able to actually enjoy the process of packing up the ornaments for this holiday season. All is a blessing though.

Also in my excitement to share daily happenings for Christmas in our classroom, I forgot one highlight that I wanted to share. This project actually started during our gratitude month of November. The children made gratitude trees and gratitude pinch pots.

Each child carefully made their own pot by following written directions that I had displayed. 

We had some secret gnomes helping with the colors, firing and the painting of each pot. 

In my rush to complete all my entries for 2012 and Christmas, I realized that I couldn't share the pinch pot ideas because they became our family gifts at Christmas.  I needed to wait until our families opened them on Christmas Day before writing about the process.

The children selected their own colors and placed tree trims on the edges and inside each pot.

During the month of November at our circle times the children told me the things they were thankful for.  These were added on slips of paper and carefully added to their individual bowls.

We will also be creating an "Gratitude" jar for 2013 in our classroom.  Together we will share and write on slips of paper our special spiritual moments or experiences. These will be placed into our
"Gratitude" jar. At the end of the school year, we will all read them together.  By creating these daily habits children can raise their awareness at seeing goodness in each moment.

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

May we all remember love and gratitude as a hallmark of thankfulness and for the many blessings in our lives.

 Our wish is to cultivate it in every moment and share it with all whom we meet.

Many blessings in this new year.
Chandi

Part 2: 2012; A Year of Love and Inspriation

Last December on "Inside Out" I wrote an entry to review the inspirational moments of my first six months of blogging.  This past year I had so many beautiful photographs that uplifted my soul, I couldn't decide which ones to include or delete.

 With a few late nights and several hours tweaking, I created this video of love and inspiration from 2012.

May the light and joy of this year, carry all of us forward into 2013 with a greater source of love, inspiration, peace and inner joy.  

Winters come and winters go, summers come and summers go.

Today we continued following along with Christmas story about our winter "Tomten". 

Last Friday we were in Italy, and now we had to cross the South Atlantic Ocean to Brazil. 

 The children pasted his tiny foot prints over to South America.

We had one of our mothers come and talk to us about growing up in Brazil. She told the children about all the holiday festivals, decorating trees, specialty foods, singing Christmas carols and a very special game of, "Secret Santa". 

We placed all the children's names in a hat and they drew out a secret friend. They began right away with the gleam of Christmas cheer in their hearts creating presents. 

The children kept themselves delightfully entertained with making small gifts, and drawing pictures. 

They loved the Christmas stories about Brazil. Christmas time is in the summer there, and can you believe it, Santa wears shorts?  They just loved this sweet visualization.  

This was a heavenly landscape from one of our artists. 

The rest of the morning the children created this sweet Brazilian Christmas trees.

 It was a delightful day for creating harmony in our classroom as we shared our love with our classmates. 

Tomorrow the "Tomten", doesn't have to travel too far. Where could he be traveling to next?

Blessings all.

Guest Post: Celebrating Circles

In our classroom at the Living Wisdom School we celebrated the Fall Equinox with one of our specialty teachers, Martia Denniston. I have had the great privilege of collaborating closely with Martia on several large art projects and she has taught me so much about creating extraordinary spiritual art experiences that uplift young children. 
 This month I have asked Martia to be our guest bloggers and describe our ceremony and celebration. 

  Celebrating Cycles

May 2012: A dawning awareness and astonishment appears in the face of a youthful student when he asks me, “Are we really made of stars?” his voice rising upward at “stars”. “Yes,” I reply, “we are made from the elements of the stars.”  In a moment of meaning we experience a meeting of mutual understanding and admiration.

These are the moments I live for.

I am privileged to create celebrations and art with children. Like the 4 & 5 year olds in Chandi's class I started life curious and connected to the world of nature. As I learned to read I became more and more immersed in a world of imagination and less interested in exploring the world outside. At 45, I awoke with a shock at how distanced I was from the natural environment and my Self. Experiencing nature, and ourselves as nature, helps us develop an authentic inner life. We learn who are, where we come from, where we are going...WHY WE ARE HERE.

Why I am here, at Living Wisdom School, is to volunteer my life experience in service and sharing. The teachers, children and I weave shared experiences of gratitude and relationship in ceremonies to celebrate our place in the cycle of the seasons, to honor the Earth as our Mother, to evoke respect for the elemental forms of the Universe, Earth, ourselves...to revere all Life.

I am a Tree

coiled within a seed within the earth. I stretch and grow as I draw the element of water up from the earth into my trunk and branches. I become living earth, growing and unfurling my leaves, feeling the breeze of air whispering through me. Lifting my hungry leaves up and up I capture the fire of the sun. I am water, earth, air, and fire. For many decades I remain here, the center of a world of life, breathing in, breathing out, cycling air and energy. After a long time I become weary with longing to return home. I fold in upon myself and into the earth, returning to the planet water, earth, air, and fire for the future life that will embody the memory of me.

The Circle

We lay out the directions for our circle. West is water (mist & clouds, rivers & oceans, blood & tears, tides without and within cleansing and healing). North is earth (asteroids & moons, mountains & forests, hearts & muscles, skeletons and shells for strength and endurance). East is air (ether, atmosphere, breath, the inhale and the exhale, inspiring and awakening). South is fire (sun, earth's molten core, life's metabolism of energy, creating and transforming). In the Center we become a Unity of Spirit, the Center is here and everywhere. Each of us takes a tiny glass pebble. We silently, secretly say our words of gratitude and slip the stone into a receptacle of water placed at the center of our Center.

Does every child understand it all? Do I? Deep in our being we do. We know what we are doing is significant and sacred. I see it in the glow of respect and reverence in their small faces, in the hallowed hush of their bodies.

    Autumn Appreciation

I read the Greek myth of Persephone, Hades and Demeter. I come to the part where the land is laid waste by the mother's grief for the loss of her daughter. My voice falters and tears find form as I push forward a small blue bowl of water, “these are Demeter's tears.” I am moved by the moment of mystery. We are all touched and talk about Autumn rains and darkening landscapes, what is going and what is coming.

I am a living Autumn, my hair turning and skin weathering like bark on the trees. Like the oldest trees on our planet, I hope I have gained a little wisdom. The children are mere beginnings of Spring, full of joy and enthusiasm. They are helping me to heal the cares of my past. I hope I am helping them to see the possibilities of the future.

Earth, ourselves,

breathe and awaken,

leaves are stirring,

all things moving,

new day coming,

Life renewing.

Pawnee Prayer

To close our ceremony we share in the Blessings of the Fruits of the Earth, calling out the qualities we are about to consume: richness of plum, melody of pear, knowledge of apple, brightness of orange...fruits to sooth our souls, berries of summer to which we say farewell until next year. We use their juice to dye grains of rice. Tomorrow we will arrange bright blue seashells (water), crushed shells of eggs dyed green (earth), light yellow grains (air), and the raspberry red rice (fire) in patterns to make mosaic mandalas ~ circles of elemental forms, our inner feelings and thoughts made visible.

It is a good day.

 

 

 Martia Denniston

Since graduating from the Whole Systems Design program at Antioch University in 2001 Martia has worked with school, community, and spiritual groups in many capacities, including designer, school librarian and storyteller, and art, meditation, and youth group teacher. Martia earned a certificate in Drawing and Painting from the University of Washington in 2008 and is a mixed media artist. She co-creates art and nature experiences with teachers at Living Wisdom School and Gaia's Temple in Seattle. “I have always used nature as our inspiration and teacher for art. I believe that making art can enhance our ability to observe deeply the processes of nature, and that observing the interactions between living systems and their environment will enrich students' art making. My dream is to help nurture in our youth a lifelong relationship with Nature and Mother Earth, one characterized by mutuality, founded in inquiry, exploration and self-expression, with a healthy respect for the awe and mystery of Life.”