Author: Membership Coordinator

I watched as you moved buckets and other containers of water. You started at the sink. Later you moved to the hose when the sink became overcrowded. Even later, you used water from the full bin. You were taking care of the living things we share this planet with by using the water already out.

The full containers were heavy. One person asked for help. I cleared the road for them between the Safe Area and Mud Mountain. Another person was busy digging up mud and moving handfuls to new places. A third person explained that they wanted to route the water from the pool on top of Mud Mountain through the bushes and out the other side.

I had a conversation with a fourth person who wished they had a helmet. I wondered why. A fifth person came to sit on my lap. They showed me a picture they had made with lots of circles and some yarn. I noticed two circles in a bigger circle. I have two eyes. I noticed two triangles on top of the bigger circle. I have two ears. They are not triangles though.

They told me it was a cat. It looked like a cat.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

P.S. Morning Meeting with Rainbow Rocket News will begin again next week. This week I am meeting with your grownups in the morning. Thank you for this time.

Dear Oak,

Somebody got hurt, a finger, a leg scratch. It was a long stick someone else was holding. It was something someone else did. Ouch! It’s ouchie to be hurt and ouchie to hurt. I wondered if there was something we could do.

One person thought a bandaid. The person who was hurt wanted ice. We got ice. Another chose the colors. Ahhhh! I like helping. I don’t like ouches. I wonder how you would help. I wonder how you like being helped.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

The praying mantis up in the tree, safe from scares and squishes and too much water.

And another I met as I was getting the yard ready for next week.

Dear Oak,

I saw blocks flying off the step. I think you were looking for another long column. You’d found one. I wondered if you wanted to help me build a dinosaur home and if what I’d started was big enough.

You took over the design of the construction and said it was for the rock. You added another layer to make it taller. I was adding windows and you filled those with blocks, and added a spy glass in order to spot the pirates and monsters.

It was probably a good idea not to have windows. Pirates and monsters might be able to use the windows to see inside the house. A few others joined us. One supervised. Another asked if they could help. They wanted to know where you wanted the blocks.

There was a slide inside. A stegosaurus really wanted to slide. They asked please in so many ways, and you said no. Dinosaurs are pretty big. They might mess up things like that hard ankylosaurus did. It crashed the whole house.

I’m very grateful that we had so many superheroes at school today what with the pirates, monsters, and dinosaurs roaming around. At one point, I think there were even ghosts.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Mulberry,

“I saw a cool spider,” you told me. I wanted to go see it. I followed you over to the hiding bush. There was the spider upside down on its messy web. It was crawling on the underneath of the web from the middle to the edge. I call that kind of spider a knee spider because to me, it looks like it has a lot of knees. As I looked closer, I thought that some of the knees really looked more like feet. You said, “That you thought the spider was dead. Then it moved, and you realized it was alive.” Everyone came over to look at the spider. I thought I might try to draw a picture of what it looked like.

Someone else turned over a big rock, and there was a dark shiny brown beetle. The beetle moved fast. It scurried to hide under the rock. They wanted to see it again and when they went to move the rock, they pushed down on one edge of it. The rock smooshed the back half of the beetle. It could still walk, but I didn’t think it could live half smooshed. I gently smooshed it two more times until it stopped moving. I wished that it could live and do beetle things. We are big and the insects who share the outdoors with us are small. A few of us hung around and looked at the dead beetle.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Consider The School’s Environment in Your Decision-Making.

This post was written by our director, Teacher Michelle, in response to an article in EdSource.

It might be. Maybe not yet? Let’s work together to support our public schools while also expanding developmentally appropriate early childhood care and education options for families. Let’s strive for access to environments where all our children can thrive.

Paramount are early childhood environments that are relationship driven and flexible, trusting and following where children’s curiosity and interests lead. They are values driven. Students thrive where teachers thrive. Early childhood environments support creativity, imagination, investigation, connections, different ways of seeing, and problem-solving. They celebrate the child’s identity. These don’t come out of the standardization and bureaucratic efficiency required of our current public education system.

I am a supporter of public education and have been alarmed by the decades long attacks on it. These include attempts to privatize it by rerouting public funds to private schools, resulting in declining enrollment and funding. I also recognize a declining population and shutdowns during COVID have contributed to shrinking public schools. Addressing these issues is crucial.

On the other hand, I don’t believe trying to grow the student population and thus the funding for public education by adding TK is the right solution. It may actually exacerbate the declining trust in public schools and thus the ongoing decline in enrollment. Nor do I think it answers families’ need for affordable quality care.

As an early childhood educator, I am concerned about pushing younger and younger children into the public school’s institutionalized environment. According to Loris Malaguzzi, the founder and director of Reggio Emilia, the environment is the third teacher.

Our littles can get lost in a large public school serving hundreds, with its fluorescent lighting, long hallways, blacktopped grounds, and sterile classrooms. When I took early childhood courses a decade ago, having co-located restrooms, a mix of hard and soft surfaces, natural light, neutral colors, space, uncluttered shelves, access to the outdoors and nature, and NAEYC recommended group size maximum of 20 and teacher:child ratios of 1:10 were just the minimum requirements for a developmentally appropriate environment.

There are three teachers of the young child: the parent, the educator, and the environment. Together, we can push for better solutions.

Dear Oak,

You were eating snacks, and we were reading books together. We read a book about arguing and then not arguing. We read a book about eating babies SO MUCH. We read a book about all the scary (not really) animals in the marsh. We were reading a book about an Ift named Snutt when you asked, “Guess what I did at Honey’s house?” I think that I guessed, “Climb trees.” You said, “Don’t guess. I’ll tell you. We had a birthday party for my Dad and ate chocolate cake.”

I said, “We read a book about a birthday party for a daddy where there was cake (the one about eating babies). I don’t think it was chocolate. Chocolate cake is my favorite cake.” You told me it was your favorite too. The person next to you also said it was their favorite. Someone else jumped in and said, “Vanilla.” And another person said, “Chocolate and Vanilla.” I thought they might mean vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, but no. Then I thought they might mean one layer of vanilla and one layer of chocolate, but no. They meant chocolate cake with vanilla. Someone added strawberry cake and a milkshake.

I wonder if anyone is hungry for cake.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Mulberry,

Someone unfurled the big long black track. It’s heavy. It’s long. It’s twisty. I wonder how they did it and how many people it took. They didn’t stop there though. They added a bridge and a tunnel and mountains and a long steep drop from the top. Then they tested. The ball came off. They made adjustments. They tested. The ball came off. They adjusted. They tested. The ball came off. They adjusted. They kept trying and trying. Until…

Yay! The ball made it all the way to the end of the track. They did all this while navigating turns and whoopsies and making sure everyone got to use a wooden ball. Once the balls started making it to the bottom. They counted how many balls made it all the way to the end.

Then they started testing different kinds of balls. The ball came off. They adjusted….

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Oak,

At one point, the whole Oak class was either waiting by the swing for a turn or on the swing. You were all trying to figure out how long each turn should be.

When you’re on a bike or digging in the sand or building with blocks, you get to use the tools you need for as long as you need them. Then, when you’re finished, someone else can have a turn.

Waiting is hard! Aarrgh. Then there’s the swing. Usually, you can swing until you are done just like any other work you’re doing at Rainbow School. The person waiting can go play chase, or ride a bike, or stand around and wait until you are done. I’ve even kept a list of who is waiting for a turn so that I can call them when there’s space.

Today was different. We don’t have our four person tire swing. And everyone was waiting for a turn. It’s a bit like our bus, where we pick up new riders at the bus stop, and those on the bus get off to make room. They can wait at the bus stop for another turn if they wish.

Someone said that the turns on the swings should be a hundred minutes. That’s an hour and forty minutes. That’s a long time. There wouldn’t even be enough time for two groups to swing before it was time to go home. Those waiting didn’t want to wait that long.

I wonder what ideas you have about a long line at the swing and what’s fair.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Mulberry,

We talked about having lots of feelings when we have an idea and someone messes up our idea or even if we’re scared that they’re going to mess it up.

I feel scared when I feel angry. Sometimes when I feel scared, I run, and sometimes I stomp and growl, and sometimes I freeze or nervously laugh or want to be extra nice. These thing all just happen in the moment I’m scared, and sometimes that out of control feeling, scares me more.

Today, two people had different ideas about the big black track. Then they had different ideas about chase. Then they had different ideas about the foam blocks. And by the time they had different ideas about the foam blocks, IT WAS TOO MUCH. They needed help. One tackled and hit, and one bit. And then, they both felt much worse. I’m sorry I didn’t get there to help.

What really helps is to have someone to be with when I feel scared who listens and stays nearby until the scared/angry passes. And then the next time something similarly scary happens, I feel just safe enough to choose something else. I wonder what you would choose.

Love,
Teacher Michelle

Dear Oak,

There was a long black track. You wanted to start from even higher. People had to get a crate to stand on to reach the starting point. Later you adjusted ths start point and threaded the end of the track through a crate handle to try to keep if from slipping.

Almost the whole class was testing the track. You had to navigate turns, make adjustments, try new paths, wait for the path to clear. So much work. So much patience.

At one point, someone worried that another was taking the wooden ball, but they were just helping by going to get the ball.

One person saw that was what was happening and explained, “Don’t worry. They’re not taking the ball. We all have our own. They were just getting it for you.”

That person was noticing other things too, thinking outloud that you would be a construction worker when you grew up because you were good at fixing things.

Love,
Teacher Michelle