Morning Circle: We begin our day with a free play transitional time where friends have options about various games, blocks, imaginary play, and a shelf full of books. After tidy up, we begin our day in our circle with a morning ritual of ringing the singing bowl and feeling its vibration in our bodies and our circle. Then we sing our song with our voices and American Sign Language as we offer our gratitude to Mother Earth.
“The Four Directions” by Sarah Pirtle (Modified for our circle)
Come on and sing, sing to the earth
Come on and sing, sing to the earth
Come on and sing, sing to the earth
Our journey has begun
Come on and sing, sing to the east
Come on and sing, sing to the east
Come on and sing, sing to the east
The place of the rising sun
Come on and sing, sing to the south
Come on and sing, sing to the south
Come on and sing, sing to the south
The place of the fire song
Come on and sing, sing to the west
Come on and sing, sing to the west
Come on and sing, sing to the west
The place of the setting sun
Come on and sing, sing to the north
Come on and sing, sing to the north
Come on and sing, sing to the north
The place of the rich, black earth
Come on and sing, sing to the earth
Come on and sing, sing to the earth
Come on and sing, sing to the earth
Our journey has begun
We greet each other by passing an unlit beeswax candle around the circle, looking into the face of the person next to us and saying
The person who takes the candle returns our greeting.
Morning circle is also the time we talk about our plans for the day, and have discussions. There are times when we will read a book to begin a new area of study.
Today we began with Peace Wishes. We have a Tibetan Prayer flag banner that we hung after we added our own wishes to it.
Charlotte: I want to grow bigger and be five years old.
Zoe: When I’m six, I wish to grow into the clothes that are too big for me now.
Sydney: I wish that I can sleep in my own bed.
Kate: I wish that we learn and grow from each other, as we collect more Peace travelers throughout the year.
The friends also answered the question, “What was your favorite thing about summer?”
Charlotte: Playing with my dogs and going to the lake.
Zoe: I learned to go off the diving board and swim to the ladder in the deep part.
Sydney: I had fun swimming and seeing friends.
Kate: I liked visiting Cape Cod for a couple days, and staying in the house where we stayed when Liam was a little baby. It was fun to remember that. The light in September is really beautiful, but the water was really too cold for swimming.
At snack, we celebrated the Autumn Equinox, and learned about the earth’s tilting away from the sun, here in the Northern Hemisphere. We are on our way to less light and warmth, as the days grow shorter and colder. The friends took turns measuring both, the dry and wet ingredients for Strawberry Yogurt-Vanilla Muffins from The Sunlight Café by Mollie Katzen, p. 85. (We substituted the strawberry yogurt for ricotta cheese, and added ¾ c. whole wheat flour to the otherwise all white flour recipe. We used skim milk for the buttermilk that was suggested.)
Our snack was followed by a Butterflies and Mushroom Quest through the woods down to the meadows. We began our study of butterflies, and looked for signs of eggs and caterpillars on the milkweed close by. We found a couple of wooly bears, and an odd yellow wooly bear as well. (When I looked this up, it seems another homeschooler had found one in West Chesterfield, MA, and identified it as a “Yellow Bear” that becomes a Virginian Tiger Moth.)
We have begun our study of the lifecycle of a butterfly, and began depicting that lifecycle in an art project in the Eric Carle tradition. Today, we did our background color (a sky blue, grey, and purple combination for all the happens around this time of year), and we’ll use tissue paper glued on to show the eggs on leaves, the caterpillar munching away the leaves on which it is hatched, the chrysalis, and full grown butterfly.
We baked and ate our muffins, and then finished with our closing circle.
Closing Circle: We finish our day with two songs. The first is adapted from the book called
The second was composed by Lui Collins (of Music Together and Kids’ Jam fame) of Ashfield, Massachusetts.
Tibetan Farewell
May no harm come to us
May we love each other well
May we be kind to all the creatures of the earth
May no harm come to us
May we love each other well
May we be kind to all the people of the earth
Kids’ Jam Farewell (with American Sign Language)
See you later alligator
Bye-bye fly
After awhile crocodile
Time to say good-bye
Toot Alou kangaroo
Ciao meow
Adios nanny goat
Good-bye for now
Bye-bye (name), bye-bye (name), bye-bye (name), bye, bye, bye….etc.
Books we read:
The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
The Life Cycle of a Butterfly by Trevor Terry & Margaret Linton
