The Children's Community: A Microschool

Are you stuck inside today due to wintry weather? It's not too late to participate in this citizen science opportunity for all ages! Many of our learners have taken an interest in what our local animals are up to when it's so blustery outside and they've noticed birds are still very active this time of year! Put on your ornithologist hats, and share the bird observations you make with the data collectors at the Great Backyard Bird Count. The data you share allows researchers ...to learn more about bird habits and habitats from thousands of "backyards" at once, and get a sense of how bird populations are faring. Download the Merlin Bird ID app or use a field guide and share what you see! #TheChildrensCommunitySTL #TrustChildren #LearnerDriven #MixedAgeLearning #SustainableEducation #ForestKids #TakeLearningOutside #CitizenScience #GreatBackyardBirdCount

#Repost @tiffanymjewell This one is for all the Caretakers & Educators!!! I’ll be in-conversation with @vitamurrow! Come share time and space with us as we talk about the #ThisBookIsAntiRacistJournal and I’m hoping Vita will share a little bit about her upcoming books with us too!... Hosted by @high_five_books February 11th, 2021, 7-8pm ET via Zoom Here’s the official description: Join New York Times bestselling author and anti-racist educator, Tiffany Jewell, in conversation with writer Vita Murrow, award-winning author of Power To The Princess, to celebrate the launch of This Book Is Anti-Racist Journal. Discover how (and why!) journaling is a powerful way to wake up, take action, and do the work of dismantling racismfor your students and yourself. Link to Register: https://www.highfivebooks.org/antiracistjournal ********************* We just grabbed our copy of #ThisBookIsAntiRacistJournal from @leftbankbooks and can't wait to learn from Tiffany Jewell tonight - join us!

TCC has had snow days these past two days, and we've enjoyed warmth and safety indoors. In this snowy weather and these sub-zero temps, how can we support our unhoused neighbors so that they may also have the warmth and safety they deserve? Please join us in putting your resources towards this effort! Click here: https://bit.ly/stlwinterhaven

Week 13 in Review: Being back in community again this week allowed for continued connection and relationship building! In the Redbuds group, we have a prospective learner shadowing with us for two weeks. She’s described her time so far as weird, in a really great way, and in a way that’s better than regular school. We love that characterization and can’t wait to see how she feels after two whole weeks here! Children were eager to collaborate on some math stories we co-crea...ted related to fire building, and during chats with learning mentors, outlined some specific interests they’d like to pursue in the days and weeks ahead: we’ve got learners curious about animal behavior, bird watching, cursive handwriting, the Guinea hens, local plants, and drawing. We dug into some of our Black history texts and discussed Black excellence, Black accomplishments, Black joy. Why are so many of our books about Black women? one learner wondered. We talked about especially highlighting the history and stories of Black women. Why is that so critical? We’re sitting with this question. The Saplings were grateful for their fire pit this week - lunch around the fire pit was so lovely. Some learners wanted to tend the fire (one at a time!) so a few learned how to add branches and use the stick to poke things into the right places. Curious learners received some fresh nature journals to aid in investigating their surroundings, and to provide a place for writing or drawing observations around TCC when the urge strikes. Monday and Tuesday also provided lots of opportunities for mud play and building at the Adventure Playground. Some learners worked on building a factory while others developed a system for taking turns getting pushed on the see-saw and counting to make sure each child had an equal amount of pushes. Play is learning! #TheChildrensCommunitySTL #TrustChildren #LearnerDriven #MixedAgeLearning #StrengthsBased #SustainableEducation #AdventurePlayground #ForestKids #CGIMath #BlackHistory #BlackHistoryMonth2021

Week 12 in review! What a joy to be back with one another, learning in community! With COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations down significantly in our area, we were able to return to in-person learning this week, in our original Saplings and Redbuds groups. Virtual learning creates space for us to connect, but we’ve missed being together in this way. In preparation for outdoor learning during the next few cold months, the entire community pitched in to stack a cord o...f wood for our fire pits. Outdoor warming areas, shelters, and warm gear help us reduce indoor time to just essential moments. We were greeted by rain on our first day back (and therefore MUD!) as well as two days of SNOW - and we were thrilled to be able enjoy the first full snow of the season together. Rolling snowballs, building snow forts, watching the animals frolic in the snowy barnyard, and SLEDDING were all highlights of our time together. The Redbuds group enjoyed longer hikes to the stream and the Tree Maze, both of which looked radically different in the mid-winter weather. We spotted a variety of animal tracks in the forest and smoothed a long sledding path through the woods. The Saplings enjoyed playing together in the rain, mud, and snow as we caught up with each other and got reacquainted with the ever-changing outdoor spaces. On Thursday when our groups combined, learners enjoyed sledding and building in mixed-age pairs. We look forward to the magic of more snowfall in the winter weeks ahead! #TheChildrensCommunitySTL #TrustChildren #LearnerDriven #MixedAgeLearning #StrengthsBased #SustainableEducation #AdventurePlayground #ForestKids #TakeLearningOutside

Week 11 in review - this was our last week being together in person, and it feels like ages ago now. At that time, growing concern for surges of COVID-19 in our state and local community prompted us to increase our COVID-19 safety precautions: we switched to KN95 masks and divided our learners into two sub-cells to combine sibling sets and reduce risk of transmission among multiple households. This intermixed our Saplings and Redbuds groups, which led to some new and positive... experiences for us all! Being responsive and agile to changing needs within our immediate and broader communities is essential, and at the heart of TCC’s values: community care. We continue to center these considerations as we navigate COVID-related decisions. Learners planted garlic from the @SlowFoodSTL Garlic Project in the sun (if you are interested in growing food, supporting biodiversity and food security, please reach out and get some garlic!). The topics of companion planting and protecting biodiversity of crops came up naturally as we planted; who knew garlic and strawberries were such good friends? The promise of planting future food when the rest of the Earth is brown and gray and barren always feels like...hope. A generous fellow St. Louisan donated a tall climbing structure to TCC that includes a steep wall, net ladder, and rope - it offers so many opportunities for children to engage in healthy risk. This kind of risk was also present as we explored a new adventuring spot in the forest: THE TREE MAZE! Created by the fall of a huge, old oak tree, which took down four other very large trees in the process, it’s just as fantastic as it sounds, with challenging climbing slopes, a wet stream bed for splashing, and many vine swings. This week showed us how resilient and flexible children can be. As we navigate virtual learning, we're reminded of the same. #TheChildrensCommunitySTL #TrustChildren #StrengthsBased #LearnerDriven #MixedAgeLearning #SustainableEducation #TakeLearningOutside #ChildrenInNature #NatureSchool #ForestKids See more