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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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“I like how things are right now!”
Our Middle School teacher, Matthew Fredrickson, shares a moment from his classroom. On what seemed like an ordinary Monday morning in our Middle School classroom, one of the sixth grade girls smiled cheerfully as she looked at me and said, “I like how things are right now!” For a moment, I didn’t comprehend her meaning. What, the stories? I wondered to myself. The children were crafting stories using their new vocabulary word list-nothing unusual for a Monday morning. The intent serenity of the room was occasionally, and thoughtfully, interrupted with questions about content, phrasing, grammar, or spelling. Smatterings of friendly chatter would follow for a minute or two until gradually,…
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Education for Life, Energy, Evenmindedness, Experiential learning, Focused Attention, Teaching Spiritual Principles
Raising Consciousness with Affirmations
One of our older students came to me expressing frustration about a difficult situation. Knowing this student and her learning process well, I suggested a positive affirmation. “How about, I am healthy, happy and whole?” “What’s whole?” she asked with a puzzled look. “It sounds like I’m a piece of pie or something”, she added. I laughed and said, “How about, I am healthy and happy?”. She replied, “That works,” and proceeded to say these words to herself and move through resolving the potential negativity of an everyday situation. A kindergarten mama shared a story of her child’s experience while receiving immunizations. She explained how her daughter was calm and…
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Our Earth and Lava Tubes
The beautiful fall weather has inspired many field trips to give students more hands-on learning experiences while the weather’s great.The Intermediate class (3-4th grade) is currently working on a unit called Our Earth. They have been studying the earth, geology, and natural disasters. As part of this unit, they took a field trip with the Upper Elementary class to the Ape Caves, which is 1.5 hours away from Portland. One of the caves there is the longest lava tube in the United States (13, 042 feet), and all of the students made it through. Here’s a little about the trip, shared by Sonali, the Intermediate teacher. There was total darkness inside…
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Boss of the Day
Bharati is a master EFL teacher who taught at Living Wisdom in Beaverton for 15 years and now fills as a teacher whenever there is a need. She was recently filling in for Usha, teaching Communication/Language Arts to the 3rdgrade class. Since the class is 3-4-5th grade, the 3rd graders leave the classroom to do work, and they often work in a multipurpose room at the school. On this day, the room had recently been drastically changed. All of the Christmas decorations were up. As is perfectly natural, the students were excited, and instantly were drawn to explore the room. Bharati let the students explore for a few minutes, but…