Inspired By Rainbows

Our class is bursting at the seams, ready for sun, ready for a soft warm breeze on our face, ready to hear the birds chirping, ready to stretch our bodies and run like the wind.  For the last few months we have been storm stayed, snow days, cold, layers of clothing, runny noses.  The magic and wonder of the beautiful winter left our hearts a few weeks ago.  We want spring!!!!

After a little "Saint Patricks Day" celebration the children had lots of "I Wonder..." questions about rainbows, so naturally it led to lots of cool inquiry explorations and inspirations throughout the room.  It was a wonderful invitation to breath some extra colour into our room to combat all the white and lack of sunshine in our lives.  

So with this post I wish you all a very HAPPY SPRING and OODLES of Colour!

Vision/Inspiration Atelier Board

The question on our board reads 

"What colours do you like to create with?"

Lots of fun provocation with the tulips and clay, pencil crayon sculpture, drawings.  

A lesson on pastels, followed by experimentation with smudging rainbow on construction paper.  

3D Shape and finger painting, don't you just love discovering math concepts through  ART?! 

Just one of the beautiful, cool, amazing benefits of FDK.  

Paint chip shades add to the kids knowledge of colours.  

And a little Picasso lady and the mirror peeping out for inspiration.  

Tissue Paper poofs to add sculpture, texture, form and visual interest above the creating table.

Tissue Mosaic Rainbow Spray

I'd like to say that this turned out amazing...but it didn't.  The gluing mosaic style tissue on paper turned out, but once the kids squirted the water it was a little anti-climatic as the tissue paper didn't drip colour!!!  So my learning lesson here was test the tissue first!  Luckily we had a little crepe streamers that we quickly cut up and the kids glued it on.  It dripped colour and we were able to observe some colour mixing and some cool dripping.  The kids seemed to enjoy the processes and I guess that was another lesson for me that it is sometimes (most of the time) about the process and not the product at the end.  Also, interesting to add was the kids observing me when this Art project didn't work as I thought it would and seeing how it turned into a science experiment and just rolling with it, really felt good, a great moment for the kids to see that adults don't always have the answers.

Next time:  I think this would be really fun for outdoor classroom, using the proper tissue. 

Throughout these weeks I can't seem to get the lyrics from a family favourite song when I was little.  "Flowers are Red" by Harry Chapin, here's a wee snippet of the verse.  It's a beautiful, yet sad and sometimes true song.   The best parts are the parts the little boy sings.

But the little boy said

"There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one"

No truer words are spoken about children and some adults (especially R. ECE's)

Have a beautiful Sunshiny kind of Day,

Love, Light and Rockets all the Way,

Marcia

Vive La New Years Resolutions...just kidding...I think you should delay them

Every January I start a new Journal.  I ferociously write my grand plans for the year, I write down every morsel I've eaten or drank for the day, how I feel, poems, observations, gratitude's.
And then I stop around the end of February.
Just like that,  done.
I have so many journals, with January to February entries.  Part of the Grand Plans, resolutions if you will, usually include cutting out Alcohol, gluten, dairy and coffee, watch less t.v., exercise more.  Always stems from the gluttonous November/December endless holiday celebrations and dinners, all the baking, rich meals, accompanied by glasses of wine and beer, and evening Bailey's or Harvey's Bristol Cream.

So really, half way between Christmas and New Years, I pretty much feel like a stuffed non-organic Turkey ready to hit the utility conveyor belt.  So making these New Years Resolutions just seems to make sense at that time.

This year started out very similar...resolutions set..... until about the 300th snow day in our Lake Effect Squall/Blizzard Vortex of Never Leaving this Town in Winter, Town.  I truly feel that I will never make a "New Years Resolution" again in January...again.
I needed a glass of wine or three on those long snow days, I needed a hot bowl of homemade cream of something soup and a crusty bun for dinner, every now and then, to warm my heart and belly, when the winds and snow just will not let up.
I needed t.v. during these months to numb my mind after obsessively checking the Weather Network Station, reading, researching, work, and all the things a Woman does.
Now the exercise more, is never a bad one, I am a big believer in daily exercise...just not always a great practitioner of such grandiose daily needs.  I usually 'up' my yoga practice, count sledding with the kids, walking the dog as my main movement breaks.  But sometimes a cuddle under the blanket, cup of tea and book seemed more important (to me) this time of year.

What I propose is from January to April first is your New Year "Prep" time.  Time to reflect, time to slowly detox from the mess of end of year shenanigans, time to regroup your thoughts and priorities, these are your winter months to take stock of your life and slowly implement, small, manageable positive changes.  Changes that won't overwhelm, changes that start feeling "right" and "easy".

Then April 1st, once the weather has broke and hopefully no more snow (but you never know) start kicking your plans into high gear.  Spring.  Everything is new and fresh, growing, stretching.  This is the time to implement all the amazing little things you 'prepped' for.  Time to shine. It just makes more sense in this time of year, and to be honest this phase of my life (what I like to call Early Mid Century).  April 1st is only 2 weeks away, I feel good(ish), I cut back on coffee, I've been juicing, yoga, writing more, t.v. a little less, cut back on gluten and dairy, drinking more herbal tea.

The next phase will come in September and this time will be a Winter Goal Setting Phase, I need to plan on how we will get through winter with a little more fun and a lot less S.A.D., I need to learn (and teach the kids) how to like, embrace, maybe even ...love winter for the rest of our lives.  (I'll let you know how that one goes) For real though, I think this is the ultimate Canadian Life Skill, and I have not mastered it.

So maybe this is my giant excuse post about all my New Years Resolution short comings or maybe, just maybe, its just, I have finally evolved and this is the year I've stopped putting so much pressure on myself to be this high performing superwoman, which I've never reached and never will and plus I don't even want to be that person anyway.  Whatever the reason, it's a new season and I'm feeling grateful and positive about life.  AND,  I'm really, really, really, looking forward to getting my hands in the dirt and start gardening (which equals exercising, right?), long sunshiny days and nights, sitting on the porch, riding bikes, and in this town our most ultimate prized possession, days at the beach on our beautiful Lake Huron.

There is a lake under all that snow.

Peace, Love and Light Always,

Marcia

The trouble with procrastination.

The trouble with procrastination.
It has come to my attention I am a champion PROCRASTINATOR.  I remember first being labeled as this in high school Junior High, by a teacher, my parents and self diagnosed from articles I read in SASSY, Seventeen and Cosmo, and I have been singing its praises ever since.  I never gave it another thought that I never was not a procrastinator.  Being a procrastinator has been my sparkly crutch for so long that I really know, no other way of life.  It is what it is and what it shall be.  

Paying bills...last minute or later (Sorry Procrastinator)
Last minute reserving for...anything, hotel, plane, restaurant...just squeak by the hair on my chinny chin chin (Sorry I'm a professional Procrastinator)
Filling in the countless forms for the kids school...ugh. (procrastinating)
Planting bulbs in September...OOPS...November...(procrastinator)
Company coming, known for a month, oh I'll wait till the evening before to grocery shop, laundry, clean, change bedding until the night before...(thanks but I was busy...procrastinating)

Don't get me wrong, things do get done...eventually.

Procrastinating is how I get stuff done.  Nice and last minute.  Just enough stress and adrenaline and fear of letting someone down, to get stuff done.

Here is something that I have come to realize about procrastination, sometimes it's just a fancy word for lazy.  And dude, sometimes a lot of the times I love to be lazy.  And guess what, I like it and it's okay.  Working full-time, with awesome, energetic, bundles of spirited 4-5 year olds is not lazy work, raising a family...not lazy work, being a good daughter, sister, friend and be fully engaged in a kick ass marriage...not lazy.  So I've decided, when I have a little free time, I'm giving myself permission to sometimes be lazy and celebrate in the awesomeness of that.

However, I am also, giving myself permission to let go of my label as a Procrastinator...starting tomorrow.

Love 
Marcia

This

The toast I wish I could say out loud without it becoming a slobberfest.

Last night Big D and I were at a dinner party, a first in a series of “Come Dine With Us” themed dinners, where each couple takes turns hosting and making dinner.  It will help get us through the last of winters throws with our mental facilities somewhat in place.  Nothing can get you through a long, cold, isolating winter quite like laughter, good food, and wine 
and great friends. 

This toast 

Goes out to all my dear friends, 

Near and far away,

Even when we don’t see each other,

Know that you are in my heart,

But, when we are able to get together,

All gathered around this table 

On a cold, and bitter night,

I look at all your beautiful faces

And it is the most magnificent sight.

We are all pulled into so many different places, 

But tonight dear friends,

It’s just us,

This food,

This Wine,

This love,

This laughter,

This night

This.

Love

Marcia