By Ethics Educator Anne Cunney
In the early fall the children spent a lot of time outside as the weather was beautiful and there was the new playground. They found much creativity in building shelters in the sand box, as well as exploring the changing seasonal botanics (crabapples off the trees and pine cones on the ground).
One Sunday we collected various dried pods, leaves, etc for a collage project the following Sunday. The creations now live on the walls of our meeting room.
I try to stay topically relevant – we discussed the Christopher Columbus debate and I read for the children an excerpt from the book “Island at the Center of the World” by Russell Shorto that explores the impending impact of the Europeans on a land that was untamed, virgin and beautiful.
Another Sunday we explored school lunch. Here I read a portion of a funny essay by Anne Lamott in her book on creative writing called “Bird by Bird”, about what school lunches were like when your mother packed them in a brown bag everyday. The children had fun telling me what it was like for them and they even talked about how some children they know appreciate that they get a “free” lunch which led to a discussion about the potential stigma of charity.
Then we moved into preparations for our annual festivals.
Our Stone Soup presentation reflected on the cultural diversity experienced in the many different foods we eat and our village people brought these to the wandering research student who came to them hungry and asking for food.