AFC BIRCH

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

We wish you well...

How do you know you are part of a community?

What does a loving community feel like?

What does it look like to extend love and kindness to someone?

After this morning, I am confident our Birch friends know these things, and more.

If you've been around preschoolers at all you know their ability to keep surprises quiet for very long is not their superpower. But showering people with feelings of love definitely IS!

These friends simply could NOT wait to unveil their masterpiece of well-wishing kindness.

And that's the thing about kindness

It ripples

spreads

overflows

It is meant for another, but it can't help but fill up the giver, too.

As their "gigantic card" was unrolled every single friend immediately crawled right onto it and began talking about what they had created.

"It's for your husband."

"And for you, too"

And they are right. Though the intent was to lift his spirits and make him smile, this act of kindness and love was something this teacher could almost tangibly feel jumping off of the page through the drawings and words, make me smile and "feel better" too.

Because it was so evident that each picture was so important and carried meaning and stories, we created space and time for each friend to share what they made for us.

There were rainbows and hearts.

Kittens covered in hearts

There were stories of machines that helped people's bodies heal, and scenes of fantasy filled with hearts and rainbows!

There were images of things that our friends love and hold dear to. And what better way to show love than to share something that you yourself love!

Each story was followed by a hug that filled your teacher up with joy.

"Ms Lisa I missed you so so much." HW

It was a sweet morning that makes me so grateful to be your teacher.

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Caring for our community

What is community?

It can be so many things, in Birch room we call our classroom community our "Family."

Family goes beyond the people we see each day, community can be the ones who we love outside our classroom family.

This week, Ms. Lisa has been staying home to take care of her husband. He is doing well, probably because she is so wonderful at taking care of others, but we miss her!

When someone who you love is not where you expect them to be, you begin to ask questions. With her permission, I shared with the students that he had to go to a very special doctor to help his heart get stronger. Well, that opened a can of worms.

After wishing them both well, someone asked "how can we take care of Ms. Lisa?" With so many great ideas, including making her cookies and babysitting her kids, it was hard to decide the best way to show Ms. Lisa and Mr. Kelley our love.

There few things preschoolers do better than ask questions, solve problems, and draw amazing pictures. We played to our strengths. We asked a lot of questions, and problem solved the best way to help with healing was to make one VERY large get well card.

Once we decided and wrote out our special message, "We hope you feel better soon," we each took time to draw a special picture or write a message. This card was covered with so much love!

There was so much time, though and effort put into each piece of this project. No one has met Mr. Kelley, but the love we have for Ms. Lisa was enough to show love and kindness to the ones she cares for.

A large portion of our year has focused on kindness and the things that live in and fill our hearts. It was fitting that today, each person in our class was able to contribute a Kindness Gem to our Kindness Branch for their love, caring thoughts, and kindness today.