Carriage House
February 24, 2023
Embedded Files
Barn Owls
With the introduction of our new Storytelling Event this year, The Barn Owls wanted to create something that connected deeply to our class culture. Peace Time has been integrated into our daily routine from the beginning of the year. Each day, for about ten minutes after playground time, kiddos emerge themselves into some sort of meditation practice. This ranged from different breathing exercises, to more recently, body scans. Students find a place to spread out and lay on their backs. We turn off the lights, they close their eyes and then listen to a recording of someone taking them through the steps of the scan. For example, feeling your chest rise and fall with each breath, or feeling tension in different muscle groups, becoming aware of different areas of their bodies, all while calming not only their bodies, but their minds as well. These body scans have become a favorite amongst the Barn Owls, and once they are finished, students are up and ready for the next part of their day!
When brainstorming what to do for our Storytelling Event the thought crossed our minds to incorporate some sort of body scan. Through deliberation and class discussions, we decided to create a “Grandmother Maple Guided Meditation”. From there the planning process began.
Barn Owls worked together to create a web of maple tree experiences. They included the different stages a maple tree goes through during the seasons starting off as a seedling to becoming a grown tree, large enough to tap for sap. Once the web was complete, The Barn Owls organized their thoughts chronologically by season. They worked together to revise their list, adding descriptive language along the way. Finally, the steps were typed up into a final draft and each child read a few lines to be recorded to be played the day of the event.
The day of, the Barn Owls collaboratively decided on the most efficient way to get all 13 of them involved in building a fire - the centerpiece around which we would share our meditation. The kids built onto each other’s ideas, did some division with unifix cubes, and decided to make the fire in 4 steps, completing each step of the process in three groups of 3, and one group of 4. Then, we created lists of everything that needed to be done to prepare the space for our visitors, which spawned an absolutely epic physical work session! There was a palpable sense of determination in the air, as buckets of wood chips and tarps full of leaves were hauled back and forth to beautify our space. When it was time to head off to the playground, most of them stayed back to see the job through! This was a beautiful gesture of care and ownership that was unexpected, yet totally in line with the Barn Owl culture of celebrating hard, meaningful, collaborative work.
Here is the meditation in case you would like to try it at home with your child!
You are a Sugar Maple seed pod, a samara, helicoptering down.
Feel yourself twirling, you softly land on the ground. You are one of the last seeds to fall for the season.
You feel yourself starting to germinate. Rain water, fertile soil, sun and warmth help you sprout into a seedling.
You are growing thin, little roots, shooting out like spider webs.
You are growing into a slender tree.
Over time you feel yourself getting a little bit taller and thicker. Feel your annual growth ring expanding.
Feel it starting to get a little warmer day by day.
You start to grow more branches and your buds unfurl into leaves, richly green by chlorophyll and carbon dioxide.
Your leaves are sucking up the sun and producing chlorophyll in the process of photosynthesis.
Feel the sap flowing through your trunk and branches.
Feel your roots digging into the ground.
Feel your branches swaying in the breeze.
Bugs are scurrying through your bark and mosquitoes are landing on your leaves.
A woodpecker is tapping at your bark to drink your sap and eat the bugs.
Feel squirrels leaping and landing on your branches and birds nesting.
Hear children running past you playing.
See your leaves transform from green to red, yellow and orange, as the chlorophyll leaves your leaves. Watch the trees around you as they fade into fall colors.
18. Feel as your leaves swirl off your branches and drift onto the
ground, eventually decomposing into compost.
Feel the squirrels begin to nest in your trunk and see the raccoon scurry into the dead log next to you.
Your maple seeds begin to helicopter down again.
Feel yourself starting to go dormant as the weather gets colder each day.
Hear the Randolph kids wassailing, as you slowly drift into complete dormancy.
Feel the weight of the snow on your branches as the snowflakes softly land on you.
Icicles start to freeze on your branches.
You are waiting for the sounds of spring.
Feel the kids wrap their arms around you in a hug to measure your circumference. You are 31 inches around, large enough to tap.
Feel the sap flowing up and down your trunk.
Feel yourself starting to awaken from dormancy.
Hear the drill going into your bark.
Feel someone cleaning out all your shavings from the drill.
Watch the spile being hammered into your bark and the bucket being hung, weighing on your trunk.
Drip, drip, drip, hear the sap hitting the bucket and the children’s excitement as they see the first drips. “Hazzah!”
See the kids lining up to put their finger in your sap and taste the sweetness.
Feel the weight of your buckets as they fill up more and more each day.
You are Grandmother Maple, the tallest, and widest tree at Randolph. You gave the most sap. Good Job!
Elder Guardians
Last week, families joined us for an all school storytelling event. The Elder Guardians spent the week leading up to the event planning our family Community Circle and getting our lean-to ready for use again. We gathered kindling, swept the floors, and chopped lots of logs. We kids named the lean-to the Elder Guardian HQ and a group took on creating a banner. We didn’t have any places to hang coats or lunch boxes, so a group worked on putting up hooks. As the week progressed and more plans for Circle were made, kids also realized we needed extra seating for family members. They noticed hay bales nearby for archery and moved them around our stump circle.
Throughout the year, kids have practiced some of the important roles for running Circle, including being observers and bringing in the talking piece. For this one, they did everything. They chose the prompt, nominated each other for roles, and created a class talking piece. They realized that in order to run Circle outside, it would be helpful to have copies of our community agreements that stayed in the lean-to. Emmett and Lennon created these and then everyone pitched in to fill them with color. The kids also created a new opening ritual where each person would place a piece of wood into the fire before taking a seat. The students who were chosen for that role figured out how many people might be present at the event and split enough wood for each person to have a piece.
On Friday, families joined us at the EG HQ for Community Circle. They were greeted by Walter ZR, Lennon, Mera, and Emanuel in the driveway and told to make their way to the lean-to. There, Ben, Emmett, and Amit gave them a piece of wood and directions to place it into our fire, which had already been built by Lennon, Mera, Emmett, and Amit. Once everyone had arrived, I gave a short welcome and then handed it over to Emanuel and Ian to introduce Circle. Mera then shared about how we use a talking piece and introduced the Elder Guardian staff. Lennon and Thea read our agreements and then Walter L. introduced the prompt: What is your favorite story and why? After students and families got a chance to share, Walter Z.R. and Quinn reported their observations (“This might have been our best Circle ever!”) and we learned new ways of ending stories from family members. Thank you for spending time with us and sharing in this important Elder Guardian tradition!
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