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Start with your Heart
Several years ago, when my children attended Living Wisdom School, I drove carpool in the mornings. The car was filled with different ages of students ranging from 1st to 7th grade. On one particular morning, the older children brought up a news topic involving leaders behaving in ways that they couldn’t understand. There was a pause for several blocks, and then, while looking out the car window, the 1st grader says, “Well, I guess they didn’t go to Living Wisdom.” The culture of kindness, positivity, empathy, and joy is felt by all ages at Living Wisdom. We’ve primarily offered this Education for Life education since 1997 through our school programs,…
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Balance for Better
In Education for Life we frequently talk about balance. Our focus in the classroom is to support the development of the body, feeling, will and intellect in our students and ourselves. We believe that a balanced person is able to successfully meet life’s challenge when he or she is able to use their innate tools of maturity. This year’s campaign theme for International Women’s Day (March 8th) was Balance for Better. Isn’t that the truth when talking about anything? Balance in equality and opportunity, balance in our ecosystem, balance in our personal lives, balance in our family lives, we could go on and on with examples. There’s also the balance…
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Changing Directions
Each Monday morning, the elementary and middle school classes gather together for Inner Joy Circle. It is an experiential gathering that helps build school community and aims to give the children a deeper experience of themselves. The planning is done in the flow learning style and takes into account what is happening in the natural world as well has current events. Today’s current event was the mass shooting in Las Vegas. I noticed that the impact of the tragedy affected my thoughts and those of the parents and staff that I met before Inner Joy Circle. A parent shared with me that it was Gandhi’s birthday and she chose to…
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Practicing Peace
Our Living Wisdom School focuses on a school wide theme each year. This theme aims to guide our classrooms, events and parent/teacher discussions. Practicing Peace is the 2017-2018 school theme. Gandhi’s quote of “Be the change you wish to see in the world” influenced this choice as well as the urgent need for centeredness, contentment and calmness in the world today. During the All School Opening Circle, the theme was shared with the school, including an activity involving planting the seeds of peace. Also, we sang “Peace like a River”, experienced a moment of silence together and sent blessings to those in our global community. Would you like some ways…
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Happy Summer!
As we wrap up the last few days of the school year, we’re wishing all of our families a very joyful and uplifting summer. Below is a list of helpful reminders inspired from a recent article posted in Psychology Today. Summertime can provide some of the most special memories of childhood. Keep it simple, be present and have fun! Keep it SimpleIn a world that can be very over-stimulating and media-saturated, it is easy to lose sight of the simple joys and wonders of our world. Wonderful and lasting summer memories can be made in simple, everyday moments– without the stress, over-stimulation, and cost of an amusement park trip. For…
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Building Community with JOY
Joyathon is one of our beloved Living Wisdom School community traditions and fundraisers. Our students – preschool to 8th grade- bike, scoot, run or walk for pledges to support our school. The children look forward to Joyathon season in May all year long. The Joyathon begins with the children creating beautiful Joyathon letters with handmade stories and artwork to be mailed to their friends and family. Next, parent volunteers and staff gather to put together the Joyathon packets. As children eagerly await the event, the school plans for the fun activities, food, and the course are underway. And the children even play “Joyathon” at recess! When the big day arrives,…
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Made to Move!
When was the last time you got down on the floor and rolled around? Jumped like a frog? Danced like the wind? Climbed, spun or crawledaround? Probably not in a long time! For most adults we’ve forgotten howimportant movement is as a way of learning, exploring and understanding theworld and ourselves – this is especially true for young children. As anyone who has ever known a 3 to 5 year old they are made to MOVE!Education for Life defines the ages of 0-6 as the “physical years,” whenchildren are exploring and relating to the world primarily through theirbody and their senses. Preschoolers at Living Wisdom School get the chanceto move…
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Appreciation, Calm, Education for Life, Experiential learning, Focused Attention, Meditation, Teaching Spiritual Principles
Circle Time
Every morning, in every Living Wisdom School classroom from preschool to middle school, the school day begins the same way. Circle Time is a special part of the day for the class to come together in unity, set the intention for the day, share and support one another, and send collective well-wishes to friends, family, and all of humanity. A short meditation is part of each classroom’s Circle Time. For our Preschool and Kindergarten classes, a highlight of Circle Time is being a “Shining Star.” Each day a new student is a Shining Star, taking turns in this role to lead the blessing, “light” the candle, and be a…
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Cathedral to Learning- post two
Below is the second in series of four blog posts about how an inspiration of the Intermediate class Art teacher, Heather Utter, manifested in the classroom. After the field trip and back in the classroom, the students began to develop a plan to create their cathedral to learning. As a class, they decided they’d like to create some form of mural, stained glass windows, and décor related to learning. They wondered, “how can we make a piece of artwork together?” Their first project was a type of ceiling mural, which they created using circles of construction paper decorated with abstract patterns. Each student had to complete at least three circles,…
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Learning about Frogs
Our First and Second grade teacher Melissa Heart, just finished up the Life Cycle of Frogs with her class. Enjoy her ideas and love of learning! The Primary class began Spring term with a Frog Life Cycle unit. Each student drew an entire life cycle that contributed to our wall mural. The mural served as a focal point and inspiration for our study. Below are some of the highlights from our unit. We learned that a frog can jump 30x’s its height, so we wondered if we were to jump like a frog how far would we go? In small groups, the students measured what that would like for them.…
