A Sweet Surprise

02/13/2026

Notes From the Sugar Bush with evan

It takes forever, but it happens in an instant. It is endlessly mysterious, and yet self-evident. It is hard work and labor, and it is pure fun and effortless joy. It is a gift of nature that is given freely, and it is priceless. It comes for just a few fleeting weeks out of every year, and yet it inspires and sweetens our experience all year long. It has been happening since before humans ever arrived on this continent, and is the newest and most thrilling thing happening around the people lucky enough to be here now. Everything there is to be said about it would fill volumes, and somehow it is encapsulated in a single shining droplet. We’re talking, of course, about MAPLE SYRUP TIME, a magical part of our school curriculum corresponding to the seasonal emergence from winter dormancy in the temperate northern woodlands that surround us.

This time around, the timing couldn’t have been more dramatically perfect. When this final school week before mid-winter recess began we were still immersed in the extraordinary deep freeze we have been experiencing for weeks, enjoying the Winter Olympics feel of the back sledding hill with no thaw in sight. Warming trends in recent years have had us tapping trees in January, earlier than ever, but this winter brought the contrasting prospect of the sap not starting to run until our break in mid-February. Determined to enjoy the experience of hanging buckets even if the sap wasn’t running and wanting to make sure not to miss the inevitable beginning of this unusually late season we started tapping Wednesday morning. The sun felt strong but the air was cold and although we were cautiously hopeful, all the trees we tapped seemed to be still dormant.

We weren’t expecting to find anything in the buckets Thursday morning which made the discovery of a few fragile “sapcicles” hanging down from Grandmother Maple’s spile all the sweeter! By Thursday afternoon every kid in the school had helped to drill holes and tap trees, and was rewarded with the sweet flow of one of Randolph’s most timeless stories repeating itself anew. As it happened, we had accurately predicted almost to the very hour when the sugar maple sap would start running. Your children are best suited to express why this is so meaningful and exciting and we hope you will spend some time talking to them about it in the coming days. The biggest work, and the inauguration of our new sugar shack, awaits us on the other side of break so rest up and get ready. Huzzah!

In (and out of) the Studio with Nina

This week, as the first sugar maples get tapped, we’ve started working on collaborative maple sugaring inspired projects!

All of our groups have started maple season in the studio with ceramic maple leaves! Using cookie cutters, rolling pins and our clay knowledge, kids from the Sunnies to the Cardinals are making beautiful maple leaf hanging art, bowls, and more. In addition to the maple ceramics they’ll bring home, they’re also making hanging maple leaves that will live in the new Sugar Shack, with their initials printed on each one, as a mark of this special group of kids and grown ups who are a part of Randolph this year.

The Sunnies have also begun work on collages inspired by the painting Maple Sugar Season, by artist Horace Pippin. Looking closely at his painting we noticed footprints in the snow, the dark sky, sap buckets and a sugar shack in the background! We are using mixed media to incorporate these elements into our own collages.

The Neighborhood and Carriage House have begun making printing plates and paint-printed pieces of fabric that we’ll combine to create a maple bunting to hang as we celebrate Maple Fest in March. After the break we’ll continue our maple work with more Horace Pippin, maple bunting, and the Carriage House’s big maple project- mini dioramas of maple sugaring scenes around Randolph!

Back in the Stacks with Siobhan

As we get deeper into winter and cabin fever starts to set in, it can be difficult for some of our kiddos to maintain interest in cozying up with a book for the entire length of their library time. This means it’s the perfect time to find ways to engage with books in ways other than sitting and enjoying their contents.

After the mid-winter break, we’ll be talking about media literacy, so recently we’ve spent time in the library engaged with the decoding of images. The Carriage House played a game where we tried to identify what the genre of a book was just by looking at the cover. At the end of the game, we had a larger discussion about what the purpose of a book cover is, asking questions about why books have illustrated covers and who benefits from making books look really interesting and inviting.

Can you guess the genre?

Our book recommendations have expanded to the hallway between the art studio and the library, with book covers featured prominently. We take a picture of the book cover using the photocopier, then the recommender writes their name and the location of the book in the library on slips of paper. So, they’re recommending books to each other and also helping each other navigate the library system. The kids have been very excited to search the library for the books they have seen recommended in the hallway.

The Downstairs spent some time this past week looking at wordless books, trying to see if they could decode images for plot, character, and information. We looked at one non-fiction book called Before After and one fiction book called Good Dog Carl, which follows the adventures of a dog and the infant he is babysitting for an afternoon. Following the story in these books was a good opportunity for the Sunnies to practice moving their eyes from left to right and top to bottom.

Interior of "Before After"

Interior of "Good Dog Carl"

Finally, we are engaging with books by adding lots of characters to the Character Tree in the library. In the same way that Randolph kids do observational drawings of things in nature or other objects from the real world, in the library they do observational drawings of characters from books. Spending time with an illustration of a character gives them the chance to think about how the illustration of a character compares to how they imagine a character in their head–which requires pointing to clues in a text. It also gives them a chance to express their love for certain characters or illustrators and have it displayed, which in turn introduces their peers to the those characters. It’s a win-win.

All of this careful and attentive engagement with images and illustrations doesn’t just help with pre-reading, decoding of words, and text analysis, but also with media literacy skills. As we move into more discussions of media and the importance of decoding it, I’ll be asking the kids to call upon the skills they have been working on this winter.

Page updated

Report abuse