I signed up for poetry and left the coast of Florida with more than poems in my pocket. Invited to attend Poetry by the Sea, a retreat for poets taught by Georgia Heard and Rebecca Dotlich, I knew it was a chance of a lifetime. Georgia has been my poetry teacher for three . . . Read More
It’s a well known fact that, over the years, the Seed has gained a reputation as being a “hippie” school. Our roots as an alternative school in the 70s have certainly fueled this perception. The school’s emphasis on gardening and saving the earth have also been contributing factors. Early on we had three- and four-year . . . Read More
Last Friday I was standing in the hallway by the K-1 when a flurry of caped superheroes burst out of the Preschool 4s room. Each superhero was sporting a brand new cape with the first letter of his or her first name boldly imprinted on the back. Enthusiasm was so high I was surprised they . . . Read More
This week children of all ages are playing with their food. In keeping with our school-wide nutrition study, food is the hot topic around the Seed. Preschoolers are matching the colors of laminated pictures and plastic foods with large hoops or pieces of colored paper. The same pictures help them find their matching circle spots. . . . Read More
Two weeks ago it was snakes, now it’s bees. On Saturday, Bill received a notice from the Smiley Honey Company in the Florida panhandle. It’s the company where he’s bought tupelo honey for years. The notice said their 2015 supply was wiped out due to bad weather (http://www.mypanhandle.com/news/tupelo-honey-supply-diminished-due-to-weather). When he first mentioned it, my first . . . Read More
It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that we’re in middle of our third week of school and it’s still August. It seems like every year summer is cut shorter and shorter. As a child, summers always meant freedom and time for wonder. It seems like we all have less and . . . Read More
I was a girl who liked snakes. Growing up in rural Nebraska with fields of prairie grass at my fingertips, we had frequent specimens available. It wasn’t unusual for me to walk in the house with a gopher snake wrapped around my shoulders. My mother was remarkably calm, considering the number of legless reptiles that . . . Read More
On Thursday I walked into the Toddler 2s to see how the new school year was going. A table with five artists caught my eye, so I sat down for a closer view. Each toddler/artist had a paint brush and container filled with a different color of paint. Already there were beautiful splotches of . . . Read More
At the end of yoga a week ago, I jokingly commented to our teacher about how hard she had worked us. She asked if it was too hard and I said no. Then she added something like, “It’s important not to hold back—we never know if it will be our last time to practice together.” . . . Read More
It’s rare for my blog to have a sequel. This one does. After writing about the Seed’s mission to inspire kids to think outside the box, we now shift to inside the box. The inspiration comes from our littlest Seeds, our Toddler 1s. When I popped in for a visit Tuesday morning, boxes were everywhere. . . . Read More
It’s been an outside-the-box week. For one thing, it’s the one week during the year that I hold my summer yoga camp at Desert Song Healing Arts Center. It’s my chance to teach a five-day camp that combines yoga and a specific topic of choice. Last year it was kindness. This year was social activism . . . Read More
I left Nebraska 46 years ago. Not yet eighteen, I spent the summer in Minnesota, then headed west to Colorado for my first year of college. I couldn’t get out of my home town fast enough. For most of my childhood, I knew my life was going to be very different from the one in . . . Read More
It was the sweetest and saddest of days all wrapped into one. Even the weather cooperated by giving us a mildly breezy and not-too-hot evening for our family party on Wednesday. Starting right at 9:00, toddler teachers handed out individual awards to our youngest Seeds as proud parents looked on. In some classes, slideshows of the year . . . Read More
In the early spring I planted a modest patch of Hopi blue corn. Usually generous with the birds, I kept the seedlings covered till I was certain they were too large to be yanked out of the ground, roots and all, by our winged friends. There was ample space for the corn in a larger . . . Read More
Until a few days ago, I’d never heard of the Cu Chi Tunnels. Our friend Kevin, a former Seed teacher, sent me a photo of a peace pole in Vietnam. He said it reminded him of ours at the Seed. The one he spotted in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) was located near the Cu . . . Read More
Becky was a magnet for my children’s allowance. Long before she started teaching at the Seed, Becky and her husband Steve had a shop on Mill Avenue. Each Saturday after their dance class, my girls migrated up the stairs to Dollars to spend their weekly allowance. Becky was always cheerful and friendly as she . . . Read More
It wasn’t easy being my mother. From the get-go I was a strong willed, scrappy, passionate outlier. Malcolm Gladwell (http://gladwell.com/outliers/) describes an outlier as someone “so outside of ordinary experience that they are as puzzling to the rest of us as a cold day in August.” That’s how I felt most of the time growing . . . Read More
When I think of tweens, kids in the nine to twelve-year-old range come to mind. At the Seed we have our own group of tweens, our Preschool 2.5/3s. They start the year looking more like toddlers, some still in diapers and barely talking. At the beginning of the year they need extra support with lunch . . . Read More
It was a dramatic Earth Day at the Seed. Maybe passionate would be a better word. Those who had the great fortune of being with us were greeted by an “installation” of nearly 300 empty plastic water bottles, strewn all over the entrance area. Some of the children were disturbed by the mass of water . . . Read More
We’re talking trash at the Seed these days. Last week we collected the lunch trash for five days and I’m happy to announce that the entire accumulation fit in a smallish box. You’ll be seeing a display of it in the coming days to further awareness of why it’s a good idea to utilize reusable . . . Read More
I encountered a swarm of bees on the playground this week. Not the fuzzy black and yellow ones; they were human bees. It was an intense swarm, with fierce negotiations around the hierarchy of a bee colony. First there was the designation of the queen bee, as well as her responsibilities and privileges. I heard . . . Read More
A sea of blue greeted me this morning. Earlier in the week, I sent out a reminder to staff and families that today, April 2, is World Autism Awareness Day. Globally, we were invited to wear blue to promote this day of awareness, to “light it up blue.” I thought maybe a few teachers might . . . Read More
2,207. That’s the number of Facebook reaches for my blog last week. It’s more than my last five or six combined. What’s up with that? I realize it could have been my catchy title, or the Facebook teaser about big news over spring break. I’m certain a big part of it was the topic, alumni . . . Read More
I didn’t make it to the ocean over spring break. Nevertheless, I was hit by a wave. Not the kind of wave that pounds the shoreline; it was a wave of good news. It started with an email from alumni parent Colleen Jennings Roggensack that included part of an announcement sent to her daughter, Kelsey, . . . Read More