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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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Beautiful Math
It’s not uncommon to hear a few students say, “I don’t want to do math. I’m not good at it. I don’t like numbers.” At least, this is what I have heard and experienced in my classroom...
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Cathedral of Learning- part one
Below is the first in series of four blog posts about how an inspiration of the Intermediate class Art teacher, Heather Utter, manifested in the classroom. Or, in the case of the below story, out of the classroom. “Cathedral to Learning,” is the theme to this year’s Intermediate Art class, based on the school-wide theme of Community. As the initial discussion regarding cathedrals began, the class realized that more than half of the students had never actually been to a cathedral! This prompted a special class field trip to the Presbyterian Church in downtown Portland. During their visit, the class was awed by the huge vaulted ceilings, beautiful Douglas fir…
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Weathering Life’s Storms
The curriculum at Living Wisdom School consciously develops the four Tools of Maturity: body, feeling, will, and intellect. We all have one area that is our favorite, the most used. If we only focus on that one tool and don’t take time to strengthen the others...
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Learning New Skills in Preschool
Every day in preschool - as in life - there are times when things don’t go our way. Every day we practice facing these disappointments and upsets using the skills we have been taught or seen modeled around us. In our class we see these conflicts and upsets as opportunities to learn new skills...
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~Happy New Year~
It is amazing how time can get away from you! As we embark on the adventures of Living Wisdom School in 2017...
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Reader’s Theater
In the primary class, there is a theme for every week based on a Vimala letter. Courage, Love, Peace, Stillness, Teamwork, or Oneness are some examples of primary class weekly themes. On Friday mornings...
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Joy Juice
At Living Wisdom, we use Conscious Discipline, the work of Dr. Becky Bailey, as a complementary tool in working with children. Two of our staff members attended a "Building Resilience in Classrooms" training with Dr. Becky Bailey this past October. Michelle Mall, our school secretary, was so inspired by the training that she's been sending out weekly emails to share...
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Season of JOY
We began the holidays with preparations for our annual Stone Soup. Each class makes a different dish for the event, and all the classes come together...
