WPNS News

Dear Oak,

There were three of you in the dark house. I couldn’t see you. You were inside. I was outside. When I walked by, I heard you say, “I made a 5. Look.” Someone else said something about a trap. Another said, “Look, the Bat Mobile.” Inside the dark house, there’s a light table, and there was dark sand on top of the light. You were using your fingers to write in the sand, making pictures and telling stories with light.

Later, I wondered about the traps. You told me about scorpion and dinosaur traps, and then you told me about a tornado door that if you opened it, a tornado escaped. Yikes! Suddenly booby traps sprang up around Rainbow Road where you could get trapped forever or fall down a drain and get eaten by a shark.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Oak,

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 … ready or not, here I come. Hmm… Are they at the top of Rainbow Mountain? No. Are they in the Sleeping Barn? No. Are they in the Pine Forest? No. Are they in the Music Garden? No? Where could they be?

Are they thirsty? Yes. Water break. That rain is too hot. That pond is too small.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Mulberry,

I was building our dark house to celebrate the darkest part of the year. The longest night is 16 sleeps away. You began exploring as I was putting up the doors. You grabbed flashlights. You grabbed the color glasses that change the color of the world.

You hung out inside. I wondered where you’d gone. Then I saw rainbow pants but only for a second. Then they disappeared again. I saw red glasses for a flash. I saw sock feet for a moment. I saw sparkle shoes and a green dinosaur. They also disappeared again.

And reappeared and disappeared again and again.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Oak,

Someone had the idea to leave. You know I think that leaving should be against the rules. I think you should all stay. I do not like when you leave. I refuse to let you leave.

Uh oh, you left. You didn’t stay. One person stayed. They had been building a house. They worked together with another person. They figured out how to weave pink yarn to create walls. They wove in blue yarn too.

They added sticks. They worked for a long time. They worked hard. I felt happy when they took a break and sat next to me.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Mulberry,

You had a plan. You were going to use the trap to keep the grownups from leaving school, and you were going to keep me trapped at the gate without any sticks. Only, you did let the grownups leave. Your grownup had already left.

I was trapped though. You told me, “5 minutes.” I groaned. I moaned. “5 minutes is forever.” While I waited I planted sticks in the dirt. Then, you took the sticks. You had a whole bouquet of sticks. I felt frustrated. Aaargh.

Someone tried to rescue me from the trap. Someone brought me sticks. You didn’t want me to be rescued. You shared your sticks with me. You made me cupcakes with sprinkles. Then you gave me a laser to save us from the pumpkin thrower.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Oak,

Welcome Au to Oak class! We’re so glad you’ve come to play with us. Today, there was a gecko egg. There were three baby geckos inside the egg. There might have been only two according to one of the babies because one was the mama gecko.

There was a narrator. The narrator tells the story. In the story, there was a snake that ate the egg. One of the babies left the egg just in time and froze the snake. Out rolled the egg. Now it was covered in snake slobber.

Later, people came and buried the gecko egg. If the geckos stay in the egg too long, they will die. Another person came along and unburied the egg, and another baby left the egg.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Oaks & Mulberries,

Thank you for bringing all the yummy food, the squash, potatoes, corn, onions, herbs, lentils, carrots, celery, bread, butter, broth to share with us and to make our stone soup delicious. Thank you for the chopping and peeling, the pouring and handfuls and pinches, and the smashing. Thank you for finding the stones this week. 

Helping and sharing made our soup magical. The best part was sitting down with all of you and your grownups and guests to devour it together for our first all school Stone Soup day.

I love you. See you in December.
Teacher Michelle

Dear Mulberry,

You jumped sideways from the sand mountain while another Mulberry pushed a log into the mountain on the other side. You said you were going to kick it down, and I thought we should check in with the other Mulberry. They were going to the log pile to bring another log. We asked them what their idea was.

They were going to stand more logs up in the mountain, so you went to go get your own. You lifted the log up over your head saying it was heavy. You rolled a log down the mountain. Both of you worked hard to move all the logs from the log pile into the sandbox.

At one point, you carried four logs over your head all at one time. Soon the whole log pile was in the sandbox. And then you moved the log pile again to the other side of the mountain. You both had many ideas.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Oak,

I don’t like goodbyes. I do like hellos. Sometimes someone doesn’t want to stay at Rainbow School. They don’t want to say goodbye. Today, that happened, and one of you came over to check in with them. All of you care for each other. It helped. Soon the person who didn’t want to say goodbye was off building a trap.

The trap was complicated. At first, there were two people working on it. Later, I lost count of how many were working on it. I wonder if you worked on it. I know that some of you were worried that others of you would mess it up. Everyone wanted to help. Sometimes different people have different ideas like how to tie, how long the rope should be, where to tie…

At first, they were only building a trap between the swing set and barn and across one side of the barn. Soon the trap was woven throughout all of Rainbow School.

They started with white rope, then added blue, then added gold, then added pink, a trap of many colors and ideas.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Mulberry,

I looked up as I heard you yell, “L come help.” I wondered what you needed help with. Two people were pulling on one side of a rope in one direction, and you were pulling on the other side. L came to help of course.

The two of you pulled one way. The other two pulled the other way. One on the other side let go. Then that side needed help.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

P.S. E found this leaf footed bug.