Meaningful Chores

When my friend was upset as a child, her Native American grandmother would suggest she work at her weaving. My friend was always surprised that as she worked her design, her mood lifted. The knots of the day would smooth out like the skeins of yarn moving in her hands.

Our ancestors showed wisdom in busying children with crafts or chores. The job of working a heavy loom or carrying dirt in wheelbarrow involves important proprioceptive activity, helping coordinate communication between the brain and the muscles and joints.

Imagine the number of beneficial activities children had in the past that boosted their strength, balance, and coordination, working on farms or helping to keep up their homes and gardens. Rhythmic physical work activity like sweeping leaves or digging in the garden soothes children’s minds and helps integrate their sensory systems.

Springtime brings the most delightful opportunities to engage children in activities that work their large muscles. In preschool and elementary school, raking, clearing, digging, and planting are part of the curriculum.

Put your child to work at home. Sorting activities are soothing and promote cognitive functioning. Have children sort laundry by color before washing or match socks afterward. Putting away groceries, loading the dishwasher, and sweeping the sidewalk are jobs that involve rhythmic activity. Instead of turning on the TV when a child needs calming, have them rearrange a book shelf, grouping it by subject, size, or color.

As children do physical work, we can encourage them to imbue these activities with love, to handle objects gently, to notice the beauty and harmony of a shelf or room that is organized, to care about a garden and the welfare of plants.

What a blessing it is to teach children that in a world full of so much thinking and planning, using their bodies can be an important channel for quieting their minds and bringing more order to the world around them.

Revamping the Reading Realm: A Blueprint for Enhancing the Library

Check out the series of renderings of our reimagined library provided by our

designer, Amy Pasek, who is also a parent of an alumna. This isn’t the final

design—but it’s close! More info coming soon!

“Remedies” for Spring Fever

If your child's personality seems to change at this time of year, try not to worry. In spring, a child’s fancy turns to pushing limits and boundaries. The same process that incites spring flowers into what Rilke called “blooming most recklessly” propels children’s instincts for expansion. In the past, people called these surges of energy “spring fever.” Wasn’t it nice when there was a  positive name for it?

At school, when teachers remark “My class was wild today!” it’s a sure sign that the surging spring energy has been hard to contain. Increased physical activity outdoors is an also an age-old remedy for spring fever. Children also need encouragement to run, to climb, and to gambol like newborn lambs and to wear themselves out. How wonderful that we have them working in our school gardens.

Every year, spring in preschool means that a few children will start talking about marrying each other and giggle. Inevitably, a little boy will urinate behind a tree. A whole class will start pushing the boundaries and it can seem like they’ve forgotten about the rules. After reminding themselves that this is only a “seasonal disorder,” teachers have to summon their creativity to provide new projects and challenges to channel the forces of growth exploding within their students.

You may find yourself noticing the budding of new behaviors at home. Sometimes we can take advantage of these times by offering children more responsibility and assign them more challenging roles. Enlist their help with spring cleaning.

Springtime is also a period when we can reflect on limits and engage our children in creating new guidelines that correspond with their spurts of new awareness and growth. Again, because of the time change, children need more sleep than we think.

You too can relish in the energy of spring. Mark Twain once wrote about the condition. “It’s spring fever . . . and when you’ve got it, you want—oh, you don’t quite know what you want, but it fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so.” Remember the wonder of spring times you experienced as a child and renew yourself as the world around you is made new.