Crow's Path

This year Anders has not gone to school on Tuesdays. 

Instead, he has been going to an outdoor field school called Crow's path.  At Crow's Path he gets to connect with the natural world around him.   He spends his time - the entire day - out of doors - no matter the weather.  He gets to stalk through the woods, play games, explore the land, eat cattail roots, carve spoons, learn how to build a tinder bundle, start a fire without a match, make rope from dog's bane, make beads from Staghorn Sumac, create a coal burned bowl, build a fort in the woods, and so much more.   It's been a wise decision.  He loves it completely.  We love it for him. 

The Benefits of An Arts Magnet School

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have lots of dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solution without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.” 

–Steve Jobs

One of the great rewards of our children going to an art magnet is the range of arts experiences they have the opportunity to engage in - regularly.  I had no idea how vast it was until I started organizing photographs.  I put together just a sampling of Anders experiences over the last few years, ranging from the visual arts to drama, dance, and music.  These are just a few...and do not capture the additional exposure they have to the exquisite range of exemplary artistic performances they have seen and experienced both within the school building as well as out of the building at our local theater.  I know they are so lucky.

Singing at his Spring concert with his classmates 

Taiko drumming and taiko performance 

 Art class at the local art museum.

Printmaking experience at a local printmaking studio 

Back stage tour and on stage class at our local performing arts center

 Warming up with a national dance teaching artist from the Kennedy Center

Printing a self designed t-shirt at a local graphic arts studio

Performing a dance about the lunar cycle 

 Working on a math painting with an artist in residence   

Getting Salsa and merengue lessons with a local dance instructor

Pantomiming a text in reading with our drama coach

Learning to throw a bowl on the potters wheel at the clay studio

SIX

 

 

 

 

 

   

                                            Milestones of your sixth year:

five teeth fell out, including your two front teeth

you started kindergarten

you learned to read

your feet grew to a whopping size 2

you learned to swim & jump into the deep end

you filled two full sketchbooks with your magnificent drawings

you have a wild and brilliant imagination

Bingo, Eli, and Eggy are still around

your joyful heart is enormous

your enthusiasm for life is contagious

your family is in love with YOU!

 

Happy Birthday Kuba!

 

Spidery Halloween!

Anders went as a very cool spider this year for Halloween.

Kindergarten High

Kuba took his first field trip today with his class....a fabulous group of five and six year olds.
The day was spectacular, crisp, and beautifully autumnal.  Here is his teacher, arms waving, joyfully welcoming the day out of doors!  How lucky is he? 

The Country Fair

We went to visit Uncle Claes and family last weekend and spent 2 days at the Sandwich Fair.  The fair was a small town event with lots and lots of animals.  We saw a ventriloquist, a sword swallower, a mind reader, a couple of great bands, hundreds of cows and oxen, horses, tractors, a parade with marching bands, and we loved every single minute of it. We want to do it again next year.  The boys even did a tractor pull and won a blue ribbon, a blue bandanna and some french fries.  Absolutely fun.

 

 

Play at Five and Eight

 

The boys have a few of those little hex bugs...really fun micro robotic creatures that truly move like small insects.  The boys built a hex bug stadium/maze for the little buggers...using nearly everything they could find.  Who needs the real hex bug stadium when you can build your own crazy  maze?  There are about five of them here in the photo...sort of I SPY-ish.  Where are the hex bugs?  I think two are obvious.  Both boys like them a lot and on this particular day clean up was a whole lot of fun.  (Not)

Still, their number one favorite play toy --- continues to be animals.  Plastic animals.  This has been true since they were very young and I don't see the animals losing their importance.  The play is just getting more sophisticated these days.  Here are a series of animal habitats with food that the boys created with Anna.  It was a half-day Saturday project mind you.  All two hundred animals lined up and waited their turn for their own unique and custom made habitats.   There is no way our boys have a problem with using their imaginations.