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Along with crafts, recipes, stories and songs, we will also share with you some content that we hope will anchor your days with encouragement and support on the adult front. Today Mama Christina writes about rhythm and routine. She offers a very rich, in-depth perspective of the importance of rhythm, but also some essential components to make your rhythm work well.

If you are needing some support on where to start in creating a healthy rhythm for your home, Lisa Boisvert Mackenzie has written a very practical article for LifeWays that you can read here. Also, Mothering Arts collaborates with LifeWays North America in a wonderful, very affordable online course on building Healthy Home Rhythms that is accessible all the time and moves at your own pace.

Dear Families,

Okay. I have my tea. This is a cozy topic so if you want to go and find the liquorice chai tea concoction and whip it up, take a moment…

As you begin or continue your teaching practice—for that is what you are doing—we realise the number of pieces to the teaching puzzle that makes up a LifeWays practice are many and varied. There is child development, philosophical and pedagogical components, social aspects, and so forth. They are all also integrated. So if we can share a few of the contributing underpinnings, this may help to build your practice in ways that you love and find meaningful. In this blog, we want to share some thoughts, beliefs and ideas about how Rhythm and Routine can be built into your teaching practice with your children.

In a culture and historical moment that priorities the New, the familiar is not necessarily views with equal enticement as is the “next best thing.” The built relationship with particular activities such as our relationship with traditions, with daily rituals and tasks, with language (prayers, verses, songs, stories, even conversation) can be lost in the sea of novelty. These relationships takes time and effort to create. Take for instance, language: words are first chosen deliberately (this verse, that blessing, this story), words are repeated and deepened over time, taken to heart and memorized, recited with reverence and with those we love. They are experienced with love for their textural cultural familiarity. The way the words resonate, the sense experience that lives over and over in our bodies and brains—create relationship that is nourishing. Like the relationship we build with different language experiences, a well-developed Rhythm and Routine take time, patience and perseverance. It is a worthy striving, for Rhythm and Routine are fundamental for calm, mindful and deliberate values-driven experience. They build safety, security, cultural competence, skill, inner resources, relationship, and love for own home traditions. They help alleviate stress, head off behaviour problems, and regulate mood. Rhythm and Routine are powerful tools as well as being cozy. What are they? How do we build them into the life school-at-home? 

A routine is simply a regular, regulated way of doing things: structuring bath time, inventing dinner, tending the garden, transitioning in and out of play. We build routines by doing specific activities at regular times on these days with these tools, together and sometimes independently. This activity is typically preceded by that activity and this 3rd activity most often follows it. We schedule our activities with a breathing in/breathing out rhythm in order to both take in nourishment and expel energy. We give, and then we take in. We contribute, and then we rest. We sing or speak, and then we listen, and then we sing, and then we listen. This rhythm of taking in and expending matches our breath. It is a bit like a dance, moving in and out in choreographed and sometimes surprising steps. And missteps. Don’t worry when the rhythm goes awry; you will re-establish it, fine tune it, carve it into something that feels like your family rhythm. It takes a bit of intention and looking at the individual pieces of the day, giving them structure and beauty, sticking to them so they get established and changing them as needed. 

For instance, let’s look at dinner. We have food prep with its minutia: gathering the herbs from the garden, chopping, washing veggies, stirring the soup, washing the cutting boards and sinks, turning the pot on low. Then there is setting the table: gathering the napkins, utensils, plates and glasses and placing them at the table, checking for neatness, gathering flowers on Mondays perhaps for the centre. Next we are putting away pre-dinner activities while the soup simmers, washing hands and combing hair. Once gathered, we are reviewing the day or sharing a verse or prayer, serving, eating and conversing. Lastly, we clean up together: each one going to their weekly after-dinner chore, with little ones being supported in their chore and, then, transitioning into the bedtime routine. The familiar rhythm of this routine daily event and the Mood with which it occurs, day after day, gives it a flavour that defines and deepens our family life and history. It builds our own relationship with food and gathering, with the garden and chores. It creates the biographies of our children around family life and themselves as participants, willing or no. 

It is the mood with which we bring Rhythm and Routine that takes these elements from simply scheduled time to meaningful, nourishing family-owned ways of being in the world. A schedule becomes, with the intentional mood of the adults, the holding, secure rhythm of Our Family Life. So consider this as you both invent and live your routines and rhythms. The poet/writer Kathleen Norris, in her book Quotidian Mysteries* fleshes out the intent to make every household activity a meditation, from doing the laundry to sweeping the floor to tending the garden. It is that kind of intention that allows a routine to gain rooted meaning. 

This is where your work in clarifying and living your values comes into play in actions as mundane (of the world) as setting the table, cleaning up the toys, dressing the doll, etc. Knowing the mood you want to permeate your family life allows you to invent both meaningful routines and to build a rhythm that makes them light and sweet. So begin with clarifying, and then bringing that mood to the routine you have decided is meaningful (and workable). 

*Kathleen Norris’s Quotidian Mysteries was published by Paulist Press, 1998, Mahwaj, NJ

Dear Families,
Here is a protection story for families from Suzanne Down’s website. (The protection story is just right, as Suzanne says, for this particular moment.) She generously shares her stories on her website. I hope you enjoy this for your storytelling.  As a teachers at Rose Rock, I utilize a process to learn a story by heart and enliven it. As you are at home with the children at this time I understand you haven’t quite the same capacity. Typically our prep for a story might look like this:  reading the story to myself several times to find its rhythms and just to master the story content, letting it rest in my mind, reading it again; telling it to myself and then telling it to the children, with great calm, with story props or hand gestures and without drama. The more times I tell it over a 3-week cycle, the more I develop a sense of its rhythm and nuance. 

Even if you print out the story on some lovely paper and read it, you can still practice and strive for making the story your own by finding its pulse, allowing its images to fill your mind.  Before reading the story, pick a time before bed or snack in which the mood can be set with warmth and calmness, and read or tell it at that same time every day. When reading it, speak with a calm voice, without drama, and then allow for some quiet time (without any other books) so that your child may digest and live into the story as well.  After a couple weeks, whether you had set out to memorize the story or not, you may find that the story is living in you anyway and there it will be for anytime your child needs a moment to connect.  Have fun!

This is a true tale, inspired by my own mother who lost her straw hat in the wind one day.  The seasons came and went, and one day, on a walk with my dad on their land, they came upon the hat.  As in this story, it was covered with growing plants, and they found a mouse nest inside.  It was magical.  My mom still wears straw hats – I wonder if more adventures in nature await her.

Grandma’s Hat

Once there was a grandmother who loved to garden.  It was a lovely summer morning, and she went outside to work in her garden.  The garden beds were already overflowing with fresh, colorful vegetables and flowers.  Butterflies and ladybugs nestled on the leaves and blossoms, and bees happily buzzed as they sipped the sweet nectar.  Grandmother knelt down to weed the rows of carrots and beets, and then started to pick enough lettuce for a salad for lunch.  Already the  sun was hot, and she took off her straw hat to cool off. 

Suddenly, a gust of wind whirled and twirled over the garden, and picked up her hat and blew it here and there, high and low!  Grandmother started to chase after her hat,  she reached high, she reached low, but the wind blew it higher and higher, and finally away from sight.

‘Oh my old straw hat,’ laughed Grandmother, ‘ it was a good hat for many years, now it deserves a little adventure!”   She kept on laughing as she picked up her basket of lettuce, and went inside to make her lunch.  ‘What a fun little tale to tell my grandchildren!’

Meanwhile, the wind blew the hat far away from the garden, over a forest of aspen trees, and finally settled it down in a lovely peaceful meadow full of summer wildflowers.  It was a happy place to land, and the hat was content to sit there and enjoy the blue sky, and sweet smells of the flowers.

Summer turned to Autumn, and the golden leaves of the aspen trees fluttered in the breezes and settled down all over the meadow, and covered the hat with a blanket of gold. 

Autumn turned chilly and soon after the first frost, beautiful white snowflakes fell over the land, and the hat was covered with a blanket of white snow.

The snow fell all through the winter months, and the hat rested still, under many blankets of snow.

The spring sun began to warm the snow, and slowly, slowly, the snow began to melt, and the straw hat was able to peek out at the meadow in springtime.  The rains of spring came, and the grass greened, and spring flowers started to grow all over the meadow.  Some of the grasses and flowers started to grow in and out of the straw hat.  The hat was pleased to become so lovely. 

And when summer came again, with the sun high in the sky, and long hot days filled the meadow, the straw hat had become a beautiful garden.  How happy the little hat was.  Then one day a little mouse appeared in the meadow.  When mouse saw the straw hat garden, he thought, ‘ this might make a fine house for me’.  Mouse went closer and climbed all over the straw hat, and even nibbled a little hole in the hat, like a window, and looked inside.  Oh my, what a big room and high ceiling there was.  Yes indeed, mouse had found a wonderful house. 

He went all through the meadow gathering soft feathers, and flower petals, he went into the forest to find some moss, and brought them all back to his new house, and went through the little window and made a soft nest to sleep in on the floor of the big room. 

When his nest was finished, mouse looked out the window of his house.  The sun was beginning to set, and the last warm golden rays of sunshine settled on the meadow, and on the straw hat house.  Mouse looked out for a long time, until the night sky began to grow deep blue, and the stars twinkled over the meadow and the straw hat house.  All was well, and mouse was happy in his new home.  He had one last look out at the beautiful world and said, ‘Good Night Meadowland’.  Then he settled down in his wee soft cozy nest, in the big room with the high ceiling of his new straw hat house.  How peaceful it was.

Suzanne Down publishes a blog, a website, holds courses for parents and early childhood teachers and regularly shares some a story she has created with young children in mind. You can see her other resources on Juniper Tree Puppets.

In the coming weeks as some of you remain together at home, we will be extending our support to you in the format of these blog posts. Thank you to the work of Mama Christina, we will share pieces of the Rose Rock curriculum that you can implement in your homes. We will also include some adult content, so that you may learn more about the LifeWays foundation of “life as the curriculum”. Like little sprouts awakening in the Spring, this blogging endeavor will be a time for us to grow and stretch–toward the ideal and the beautiful.

It may not feel like a time to be joyful when you are caught in the storm of adult experiences– inundated with news updates and stalked by anxiety. However, at times like these, it is critical for us to protect and cultivate reverence, gratitude, love, calm, and joy–for the sake of our sanity and for the health and vitality of our children. With adaptability, inner strength, and equanimity, we can become the calm in the storm for our families. We all have the ability to find reason to genuinely rejoice each day, to slow down and give our children the best parts of ourselves.

With love and solidarity,

Acacia and Shanah

Today we would like to share with you a song that is both joyful and empowering for everyone! Allison Davies , neurologic music therapist and brain care specialist, shared it on her Facebook page and YouTube channel. If you can, we encourage you to listen to her Facebook post as it gives you a little bit of information about why the song is so darn helpful! You can learn more about Allison Davies at allisondavies.com.au

We would also like to share a recipe for a tasty caffiene-free, immune-boosting Licorice Chai tea latte. Thank you to Dr. Heidi Lescanec, naturopathic doctor and culinary nutritionist, for sharing it on her website. She explains the benefits for licorice root in her posting, and the benefit for you is that it is easy to make with children and mixed with a glass of cold milk, the latte is a crowd-pleaser!

As the new year gets underway, we wanted to share a picture of a particular piece of the nourishing curriculum we craft. As a LifeWays program and as a school with a deep respect for the needs of the growing child, one of the areas we focus on each day is how we feed the children here at Rose Rock. As you likely know, we have always cooked with all organic options that are available. This year, we have been working with a mostly vegan menu, something our very kind cook, Ann, has been learning and inventing since early Fall.  Some of you may wonder why we have chosen a mostly vegan menu or why we do not opt to have more lunchbox meals alongside a “hot lunch program”, like the typical school offerings.  

Our aim is to create a home-like experience for the children–life is the curriculum, home is the model. This means we eat family-style meals, all served from the same dishes of food, just like one would traditionally be served at home. This can become complicated when we need to consider a variety of dietary needs and family preferences.

Yet, we feel strongly that what we provide for the children is nourishing for all on a number of levels. 

How do we determine what food is nourishing for all? We are looking out, of course, for those various nutrients that foster strong physical bodies.  We cover the basics like filtered water, and a variety of vegetables and fruits daily.  We emphasize the whole grain vitamin B sources that promote cognitive function, generate brain cells and healthy skin, and help convert food into energy.  We provide proteins that build and replenish basic physiology from plant-based sources and chicken (on Thursdays). We eat plenty of healthy fats that provide long-term energy, support cell growth and hormone production, aid in the absorption of many vitamins and nutrients, and help keep our organs warm. We have an awareness of where the food we eat is sourced from as well, which is in part why we opt to select organic foods and grow a vegetable garden. And we stick to whole foods, eliminating most processed boxed foods, additives, preservatives, processed sugars and unhealthy fats.  

Here is a brief breakdown of two days snack and lunch picture:

• Day one
  • morning snack of honey-sweetened coconut yogurt with blueberries and granola provides a moderate amount of healthy fats and some protein as well as a significant amount of calcium, vitamin D2 & B12, magnesium and antioxidants.  
  • Lunch of Pad Thai rice pasta with broccoli and tofu provides a moderate amount of protein, plenty of carbohydrates for fast energy, and significant amounts of calcium, iron, magnesium, vitamins K & C, essential amino acids and antioxidants.
•  Day two
  • morning snack of sprouted multigrain bagel spread with Earth Balance, and served with raisins and a clementine provide a substantial amount of protein, healthy fats, all nine essential amino acids, B vitamins and vitamin C, as well as plenty of fiber. 
  • Lunch of Wild rice and mushroom soup with peas and carrots on the side provides, again, a substantial amount of protein and carbohydrates for fast and long-term energy, as well as vitamin A (beta carotene), vitamin K, dozens of minerals, antioxidants and immune-boosting compounds.  

Keeping in mind that the daily protein need for children ages 4 to 9 years of age is 19 grams, from just the 2 meals Rose Rock serves all children, we are able to cover more than half of your child’s protein needs. If your child has an afternoon snack with us, they pull in another 3 to 5 grams of protein on average with items like pumpkin seeds and sunflower butter. Pumpkin seeds also contain a range of other nutrients such as iron, selenium, the B vitamins, beta-carotene, zinc,  magnesium, and calcium. Magnesium can help with sleep health. Calcium is busy building bones, of course, but also contributes to neuro-health, along with the healthy fats.  

No matter what we are serving, we are constantly considering what is best for the whole child and the whole group.  Sometimes we make compromises to our personal family choices, but we never compromise on the children’s well-being.

Furthermore, the importance of a family-style meal reaches beyond the nutritional content of the food. We must consider, too, what gesture we are creating at the table.  We want it to be one of gratitude and goodness. 

The young child’s perception of the world and each other must be focused on what is good and what unites us. A meal in which the children are eating different things, or too many different versions of the same meal places emphasis instead upon differences. Our time together is quickly monopolized by conversation pieces such as

“Why can’t I eat what she has?” 

“He’s allergic”- “No, I’m not, I’m intolerant.”-”What’s intolerant? What’s allergic?” 

“Why doesn’t his family eat meat? I want what he is having”

The experience leads children into a cognitive space of discernment they are not yet ready for. It opens the door to judgement and divisiveness. 

Sharing the same meal, on the other hand, places the focus on the good things that nourish us all.

Take for example, the applesauce we eat on Wednesday mornings.  This applesauce is a collaborative effort: the children chop apples every Monday and Ann cooks them into sauce to serve aside multigrain english muffins with butter and jam.  When we eat our applesauce on Wednesdays, the children almost always recall for each other how they worked to chop the apples. They talk about how good it tastes and how it is their favorite morning snack.  Our time is filled with sharing and gratitude. 

Feeding an entire school of children coming from a wide variety of families and backgrounds, is no small task.  It takes consciousness and continual re-evaluation to determine how each meal will contribute to the health and well-being of the child, just as every meaningful task, affectionate squeeze, hour of sleep or moment of play does, too.  

Starting a family tradition can feel daunting at times. We start with an idea, then begin to imagine what it will look like: When? Who is involved? What will we do? How will we do it? Caught up in the excitement we may build a great imagination of it, accidentally viewing it years down the road. It’s elaborate, it’s established, and already we can see the fruits of our labor. But, wait. We haven’t even started yet. All that looks glorious, and all that looks difficult to pull off. We finish our plans with a sense of disappointment with ourselves, convinced we simply couldn’t manage all that.

And, yet….. Could we maybe take a step back from the story for a moment? Because that’s what it has become at that point- just a story. It can be difficult to recognize when we slip into creating the story instead of creating real life, but it’s an important step. In the story we have all sorts of what-ifs, in real life we have simply what happens. And, sometimes, simply what we can make do with.

Family traditions- as you can read in our series- can be simple or complex. But the complex usually take years to become. What makes it glorious is when you start with an idea and take the next step, whatever the activity is, to be together. Make space to let the moments shine through the chatter of your story. Open your heart to see and revere it. Then, take the greater step of doing it again. And again. And again. Before you know it, you are years down the road brimming with gratitude as you take it what has been created.

It’s as simple, perhaps, as just a walk out the door……

Holidays and festivals are rich with meaning and purpose, lending themselves easily as a time and space of tradition and ritual. In honor of this holiday season and the diversity of families we have at Rose Rock, we will take the next several weeks to feature some of their traditions and rituals. These may be traditions of long ago, cherished and kept since childhood, or they may be freshly created for our own children. They may be centered in one festival or holiday, or they may be simple rituals that uplift our daily lives during this time of year. All of them are special ways we create our family cultures. We invite you to relish in them as we do and be inspired to begin your own.

One of my children’s favorite traditions during the holidays is going out on our land as a family to find the perfect Christmas tree. Red cedar trees grow quickly, and may be considered invasive in our region, so they make a perfect choice for a locally harvested tree.

For our five year old, it’s never too early to start looking for the best tree- she will casually remark on this tree or that even in the middle of summer! Our hunt begins in earnest, though, around the middle of December. This year we found one approximately 7′ tall that, once pruned of some ragged lower branches, made the perfect fit in our home.  After it was placed in the spot of honor, I caught one of our little ones quietly singing “Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches.”     

This sweet moment reminded me that perhaps we should be more like the child who sees a potential Christmas tree in every scraggly evergreen,  and look for the good in one another, not only during the holiday season, but all year round. 

From our family to yours, happy holidays!

By Elizabeth Cupp, wife to Trevor Cupp, mom to Penelope and Heidi

Holidays and festivals are rich with meaning and purpose, lending themselves easily as a time and space of tradition and ritual. In honor of this holiday season and the diversity of families we have at Rose Rock, we will take the next several weeks to feature some of their traditions and rituals. These may be traditions of long ago, cherished and kept since childhood, or they may be freshly created for our own children. They may be centered in one festival or holiday, or they may be simple rituals that uplift our daily lives during this time of year. All of them are special ways we create our family cultures. We invite you to relish in them as we do and be inspired to begin your own.

Winter Solstice marks the shortest period of daylight in the year but with each day there is more and more light. This is not a holiday that my family celebrated growing up, but it is one that Rob wanted to bring into our family and I loved the idea of having something that is intimate to just our household, separate from the hustle and bustle that is the rest of the holiday season. So far we haven’t filled this day with plans and anticipation, we simply make sure to acknowledge it. We make an effort to have a quiet evening at home, with a simply cooked meal. The main goal is to turn off all the other things that can pull at us on any given evening and to focus on one another as a family.

We have added small rituals along the way, really just inviting one another to contribute ideas to what might make the night special for us as a family. Some have stuck and others haven’t. In the past we’ve baked something sweet like cookies, pies, or cakes. Sometimes we take a nighttime walk through the neighborhood to look at holiday lights. One year we all got new pajamas to wear and we wore them while watching the sunset on the back porch. The past two years we have exchanged books and chocolates. 

The most long-standing ritual is to choose a live plant on this evening and dub it the “solstice tree.” In the past this has been a number of plant types depending on what we can find. Of course we’ve purchased small conifers before, but one time we brought in a patch of moss from our yard. We’ve also used collard tree starters for the vegetable garden. This year we purchased a fig tree. We keep this plant alive indoors all winter as a reminder of life, that the earth will warm again to bountiful times in the spring. When it is warm enough, we plant our solstice tree outside in the garden. 

Written by Shayna Pond, wife to Rob Vollmar and mother to Eleanor and, their new baby, Liliana.

Holidays and festivals are rich with meaning and purpose, lending themselves easily as a time and space of tradition and ritual. In honor of this holiday season and the diversity of families we have at Rose Rock, we will take the next several weeks to feature some of their traditions and rituals. These may be traditions of long ago, cherished and kept since childhood, or they may be freshly created for our own children. They may be centered in one festival or holiday, or they may be simple rituals that uplift our daily lives during this time of year. All of them are special ways we create our family cultures. We invite you to relish in them as we do and be inspired to begin your own.

Jesse and I both come from spiritually non-denominational backgrounds with a beautiful hodgepodge of traditions. We have Christmas trees, light candles, hang stocking on our hearth, enjoy merriment and feasting galore, and exchange gifts. My mother was Jewish with Romani flair and her adopted mother was Orthodox. From my youth, I recall receiving small, colorful advent calendars. I delightfully discovered, behind each cardboard door, tiny chocolate treasures. 

Over the years, my spirituality and ritual practices have evolved and changed to suite my ever-growing thirst for knowledge and understanding. I have found myself drawn to my Norwegian ancestry, and yearning to incorporate those deeply honored Germanic traditions like Yule, Sunwait and Väntljusstaken, as well as the runes. 

Jesse and I celebrate Winter Solstice and Yule on December 21, and we celebrate Christmas with both sides of our families on December 24 and 25. When we had Scarlette, I wanted to share the thrill of advent with her, but also wanted to tie it into our personal celebratory rituals. Behold, the birth of the runic advent. 24 runes of the Elder Futhark and 24 days leading up to Christmas. 

I gathered 24 canvas pouches, painted a rune (in glitter puff paint) on the outside of each one, filled it with delicious varieties of German and Norwegian chocolates (Aldi is amazing) and tied them with ribbon to a string hung on our living room wall. On December 1, we open the first pouch and learn all about the rune Fehu, the first rune of the runic alphabet. Each rune has poems, Galdr (songs), and interesting nuggets to discuss. We do this while we enjoy our chocolate. 

Scarlette looks forward to opening “the bow one,” which is Dagaz, on December 23rd. The rune looks similar to a bow and she is fascinated by it. I also find this wonderfully synchronistic considering Dagaz is the rune representing Day or Dawn and we are celebrating the return of the sun/Son with this ritual.    

Written by Bridgette Slone, wife to Jesse Slone, step-mom to Madison, and mom to Scarlette.

Holidays and festivals are rich with meaning and purpose, lending themselves easily as a time and space of tradition and ritual. In honor of this holiday season and the diversity of families we have at Rose Rock, we will take the next several weeks to feature some of their traditions and rituals. These may be traditions of long ago, cherished and kept since childhood, or they may be freshly created for our own children. They may be centered in one festival or holiday, or they may be simple rituals that uplift our daily lives during this time of year. All of them are special ways we create our family cultures. We invite you to relish in them as we do and be inspired to begin your own.

In the Catholic church (and related denominations), Advent is a reverent four week preparation for the coming of the Christ child on Christmas Day. For adults, the time may be spent solemnly with inner work that prepares space for the Christ child in one’s heart. For children it is hard to consider it a solemn time, especially if you delight in anticipation itself as I do. As a child, I was delighted by it, and nurtured by several beautiful rituals that my family participated in each year through Advent and Christmas time.

One of my favorite traditions was our ritual surrounding the Advent wreath: four candles set around an evergreen-decorated wreath, each representing a theme such as hope or peace. Each Sunday, we gathered around the wreath before bedtime, to light the candle(s) and read a prayer or a story from the bible. We also sang Christmas carols, as we were often singing in my childhood home. I remember vividly the layers of anticipation- of coming together to sing; of when I would be old enough to light a candle, then for when it was my turn within the four weeks; of when we would read the story I loved best, and when we would finally make it through all the candles to Christmas Day. Other details of the ritual have faded, but the space of holiness it created has not.

Many years and spiritual twists and turns later, I reclaimed this tradition with my own children in the Advent Spiral. Similar to the evergreen spiral we walk at Rose Rock during our Festival of Light, this one sits on our table top. It is adorned weekly with elements of the four kingdoms, all awaiting the birth of the Sun/Son. Each morning we sing as we move our star candle towards the center, each evening we say a little verse and light candles to read by. We have two books we alternate reading each year- Mary’s Little Donkey, and the Light in the Lantern, both offering sweet stories of how the world prepared for the coming of the Christ child.

Our family is not heavy in religion or explicit spiritual practice, but the festivals are an anchor for our inner paths. In bringing the Advent season (and other traditions) to our children, my hope is to cultivate a reverence for life and Spirit that grows into a rich inner life of whatever shape that fits their own paths.

Written by Acacia Moore, wife to Erik Moore, mom to Everett, Kellan, and Quinn.

In the Lifeways curriculum, just like in home life, every event, activity, speech act, becomes relevant to growth, development and learning, whether that learning is focused toward academic work or to other kinds of competencies. And while traditional “schooling” or education for many seems to isolate verbal and mathematic academic measured tasks (as in the famous STAR testing in elementary school), this detour in the education approach and emphasis creates serious gaps in children’s knowledge, skills, moral reasoning, and development. 

A first question for new families, especially of very young children, and an on-going question for older students is: how do transitions from home to school and from school to home speak to very important cognitive function we seek to develop in our children before they attend elementary school? Do they? Do transitions have something to do with, or somehow reflect on cognition? How does my child’s growing comfort with transitions throughout the day relate to or inform or become curriculum? Here is an important piece in the conversation about learning and academic success: one of the first developmental tasks for human beings is that of successfully completing (certainly it is an on-going and complicating task throughout the lifespan) the task of building trust. The alternate, where this developmental task is left incomplete or reaches its negative conclusion is the growth of mistrust. Trust versus mistrust according to Eric Erikson (1950) is fundamental to learnng, to meaning, and to growth and development. You can imagine what Trust (or its alternate, Mistrust) means for stress level, anxiety, ability to focus, willingness to take cognitive risks and solve problems or at least resiliently struggle with problems. Without trust in the world and in the self, the problem solver is overwhelmed, cannot think clearly, has trouble bulding enough successes to experience self-efficacy, that necessary ingredient for tackling the next and the next hard thing. With interest, enthusiasm, with resilience, hope and joy, the next task or series of tasks become possible and even engaging. There is a lot riding on the Trust versus Mistrust developmental task. And it is not ever complete, but the roots of Trust are built in the early years. And for us at Rose Rock, part of this Trust is learned with the transition at the beginning of the day. Are the adults to whom I am entrusted worthy of Trust? Can I find my way from one environment to another? Can I self soothe when I miss my parents? Can I self-direct toward activities that interest me? Can I negotiate my way into the games of friends? Am I willing to trust the world? All of this comes with time, like anything.

One of the ways we build trust at times of transition is in careful consideration and respect for each child’s way of handling them. In each classroom, each child has different ways to enter the day, and each one of those ways is perfectly normal. 

One child jumps into play with his peers, all ready in the room with ideas lined up. When it is time to tidy and move on to a kindergarten activity, he is surprised at the brevity of time he has, hungry for more time to execute his play plans.  One three year old comes in his rain jacket, his costume he calls it, and wears it through a large part of the morning. It provides him with an emotionally protective sheath as he transitions away from home and family.  Another child has a brief but elaborate good-bye ritual that involves carrying in her nap time lovey, giving a secret handshake, last minute hugs and a walk back to the door to see her father out. If her routine is disrupted, it is challenging for her to smoothly meet her peers in play. She finds strength again in following the teacher about, helping prepare for the day and kindergarten actcivity. Once the class is settled, her mood has shifted, her lovey is put away and she happily applies her will to the task at hand. Each child, each person, transitions with their own nourishing rituals. 

Consider what a great amount of emotional resiliency and cognitive capacity is developing through these transitions! 

This transition on which your child has been working for the past years (if your family is a seasoned Rose Rock family) or for the past couple months if you are new to Rose Rock is building that essential skill of transition and Trust. It is a whole slew of skills from learning the sequence of tasks (coming in, taking off and stowing shoes, hanging up the napsack, greeting the teacher, saying goodbye to parents or grandparents), entering play, sustaining play, transitioning to craft, re-entering play, recognizing and choosing to help with clean up and for older children to assist younger children, for younger children to cooperate with their older friends and classmates, etc. There are a great many transitions in the morning and throughout the day. Learning to transition requires self-regulation, a willing heart, the confidence of parents (which children read very well), memory (for the sequence of tasks, how to negotiate the environment, etc.), will (the decision to actively participate) and follow through (sustataining will, energy, desire to contribute, trust in the environment). This ability to transition will be a necessary skill throughout life and throughout academic work. Imagine how an unwillingness or lack of skill with transition translates between this series of higher order academic steps to write a paragraph and later, a paper: recognize, accept and embrace the focus question; research, create hypothesis, apply relevant research, write, rewrite, edit, revise, cite, publish. Transitions, both overt and subtle, are required throughout this process and in every academic project throughout the grades and beyond. 

So Transitions. Learning Trust. These are two of the relevant and seminal curricular tasks at Rose Rock.