The Rookery

A picture of dead man's fingers in a kindergartener's journal after going to the Mycology Museum. On Wednesday, the Herons taught the rest of our community about what we had been learning.  The event had the excitement and energy that I always love about culminations.  There were missing copies to…

It has been way, way too long.  On Thursday, I looked across the Herons' room to see students bustling this way and that.  Several were headed to the basement to find puffball costumes.  Two were climbing the spinning Albero on the playground to figure out how much paper it would…

On our very first day of Forest School we went on a mushroom hunt.  I wasn't sure what we'd find – although the week before I'd found at least a few mushrooms around.  Within moments, there were squeals of delight. A patch of giant mushrooms were growing under a pine,…

  My "S" Hook This summer, I spent a day – a whole day – learning how to make…a hook. At the end of six hours of hot sweaty work I had something that takes a professional blacksmith four to five minutes to make.  And frankly, it's not a great…

This whole week as I prepare to write narratives, the first lines of William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" have been on repeat in my head: To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower  Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand  And…

We have a shared blog this year – but I realized as I was writing and placing in pictures that there will be moments, many moments, that are the Heron's alone (just as there will be Kestrel and Robin moments that are not duplicated in our classroom.). I'll use this…

About two weeks ago, I listened to a remembrance of a front line worker who had died of Covid 19.  Yves-Emmanuel Segui was a pharmacist in Yonkers, New York.  Originally certified as a pharmacist in the Ivory Coast, Mr. Sequi had worked very hard to both learn English and pass…

So, we're one week in to summer and I just walked into my living room to find two children sprawled out on the floor, their screen time exhausted and their day stretching before them.  What to do? This is an unusual summer (understatement, I know).  We are coming off of…

It was strange talking to the Herons about George Floyd last Tuesday. We've had hard conversations about race in the past year but we've always been together in the meeting area for them. These faces that are usually so immediate when we are in a conversation were isolated in their…

My very favorite moment as a teacher is when the room is a maelstrom of varied, intense activity and I am utterly tangential to it.  The students know what they are about.  They have made their plans, they have learned their stuff.  They are on a mission.  Sure, they need…