December 2024: Peace Begins with Me

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

-Edith Wharton

Mindful Focus: Traditions and spending time with family

Explorations: Ways of celebrating and lights

December always goes so fast! It’s a lot of fun condensed into two or three weeks. We love providing a fun filled environment for children and families. This short and sweet newsletter is written by Demi Parker.

Ways to Celebrate, Family, & Traditions:

Music, dance, food, and decorations!

Although there is a holiday in December that the majority celebrate, we find value in representing to the children how different types of celebrations from different types of people. This can be a big annual holiday or doing a little dance when you when a game. Regardless of what we are celebrating, humans have found commonalities in the ways we celebrate. Music, dance, food, and decorations can be found in all cultures! We talked about traditions and how fun traditions can be. We heard about weekly pizza movie nights to decorating Christmas trees. Traditions can be passed down from generations, or be newly created. All families and traditions are valued and loved.

Mindful Focus: Individuality, Unity, & Connection

“Don’t fear the light within. May it ignite the Sacred Flame in your soul.”

- Paulo Coelho

We frequently encourage the children to be themselves and express themselves as they wish. With individuality comes connections. We show children that we can be peers regardless of our differences. We played games together and built meaningful relationships. We fed our pet worms and taught the children how we give and get in this life, together we unite.

Light Exploration:

Making decorations and exploring with our overhead projector was so much fun! Light is also used often in celebrations. Light is a natural artistic medium that provides value to learning and play. The children love playing with the projector! We were so proud of how respectful and mature they were with the large tool. Each child got to decorate a lantern and were amazed with the teachers’ “magic candles”.

Art Exploration:

Wet-on-Wet Watercolor, Light-on-Dark Still Life, Drawing our Family, Paper Collage

Art time at SimpleLife has great value. The children who attend SimpleLife get to experience art projects beyond your typical cut and paste crafts. The children loved doing our wet-on-wet watercolor project! By soaking watercolor paper in water and then using liquid water colors, children got to create a drip tie-dye master piece! Once it was dry, each child got to spend some one-on-one time with a teacher drawing their family and telling them about the loving people inside their home. Light-on-dark is an advanced artistic skill that the preschoolers get to experience early on here at SimpleLife. The children really found the joy of the processing and releasing their inner artist during this project!

Winter Celebration:

Cookies, dancing, and winter time joy! A day of fun, connection, and recognizing the different types of ways to celebrate and spread love. Thank you to our musicians for making the day bright! And great thanks to all of you who brought wonderful and loving gifts!