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"Pay Attention"


"Pay attention" is the first line in Mary Oliver's "Instructions for living a life."


In order to see the signs of spring, we need to pause, maybe actually park ourselves for multiple moments. For kids, we call this a "sit spot". It is a place and time to let your senses awaken. What do you see? What can be heard? How does the earth smell? Get down low.... look under....look up.... close your eyes and look. Pay attention to the world around us. What signs of spring do you see?


I almost missed this pair of Canada geese foraging in the field with their gray-ness against the gray stonewalls on a gray day. I heard them first.


Did you know that the Canada Goose partners for life...a 10-24 year lifespan? Their 6 foot wing span carries their 14 pound bodies in V formation as they migrate north and south in spring and fall.


As a child, my parents used to take me over to Canada to Jack Miner Migratory Bird Foundation at the first hint of spring or fall. It was here that I was astonished (the second line of Mary Oliver's poem) at the blackened sky full of these amazing birds. And the sound was, at the very least, memorable. Maybe that is why I heard them first. Their sound registering with the childhood memories made decades ago. Children connecting to nature through their senses. It is what they are hard-wired to do! What memories in nature are conjured up in your mind by a particular sight, sound, or smell?





1 commentaire


Kelly Hamilton
Kelly Hamilton
15 avr. 2020

I love Mary Oliver! Thank you for sharing a reminder of her wisdom. We saw two ducks resting in a branch in our back woods today. I had never seen ducks sitting so high in a tree before. We welcomed them back for the season! :)

J'aime

UPCOMING DATES

Dec 11-Dec 29 Magic Journey

December 22 Solstice Celebration

Dec 23-Jan 4  Holiday Vacation

Jan 22 Community Event at Gunstock

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

to our December birthday friends

Liam                        Dec 6

Josie                        Dec 6

Erin                         Dec 14

Annette                   Dec 30

WISH LIST

The Dewey School would welcome donations of any of the following:

 

Floor puzzles (trains, dinosaurs, wildlife, nature, states, alphabet)

Sensory Bin Fillers:

*packing peanuts

*cardboard tubes

*bird seed

*cotton balls

*rubber bands

 

Materials and Tools

*tape: colored masking tape

*smallish shovels

Outside Messy Materials

*rope for bridges

*plastic culvert

*ribbon

*outdoor musical instruments

 

Daily

*tissues

 

Think Gardening

Real gardening tools for our garden

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