Teacher Margaret's "View From My Window" - January 9th

This God of Creation, I’m thinking, is a God who wants to be known not simply in words on a page, but in the butterfly couplet shimmering across a lazy afternoon, the lonely cry of the unseen geese’s night crossing, the frost ferns on the windowpanes. 

Mahany

Dear Friends,

The midwest, four-season human that I am, loves this weather. On Monday, while it was snowing, I walked around Amico Island Park. I enjoy the quiet. If you are a parent of a PreK child, ask them why it is always quiet when it snows – this is a wonder and astonishment. We talked about the science behind the silence during library on Tuesday. We also considered how it is possible that all snowflakes have six sides and no two snowflakes are ever the same.

Over our vacation, I finished The Book of Nature: The Astonishing Beauty of God’s First Sacred Text by Barbara Mahany.  Each chapter is filled with beauty and musings and questions and observations and amazing writing by Thomas Merton, Annie Dilliard, Walt Whitman, and Nikki Giovanni, to name just a few. Our older students will read some of these amazing writers' essays.  Across our writing program, our students learn to describe what they see with greater precision, emotion, and vividness. Throughout this year, most of our students are spending time outdoors with journals and sketch pads to capture what they see and feel and know when they are under the sky and disconnected from technology. Our intention is to help them to experience life’s wholeness. “It's the spiritual practice of the ages, the practice of paying exquisite attention”(Mahany, 154). What they love and understand themselves as connected to now they will grow to protect and nurture throughout their lives.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the school’s Annual Fund. Your support has been a source of ebullient joy. Every contribution is significant – you are essential in creating a lasting impact on our school. Our faculty and staff have achieved 100% participation, so we invite our parents to rise to that challenge. The friendly competition among grades for a lunch party continues to thrive, with the 3rd and 4th grades currently leading the charge at 90% participation!

Warmly,

Margaret Haviland

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January Query: Peace Testimony - When I am outside in nature, what brings me a sense of wonder, a sense of peace?

Announcements:

• January 8 ~ Meeting for Worship at 8:30, parents and grandparents welcome
• January 17 ~ Teacher In-Service, no school
• January 20 ~ Martin Luther King Day, no school
• January 23 ~ Step Up Evening - learn about your child’s program in the 25-26 school year, meet the teachers 6:30 PM
• January 26th ~ WFC Roller Skating Party 1-3:00 PM
• January 29th ~ Discussion of Howard Thurman’s essay "Mysticism and the Experience of Love" 8:30 AM