What a warm and fruitful spring! We have been working (and playing) hard establishing our garden, and we have seen students evolve from being wary of the carrots, lettuce or provider beans we have so far harvested to begging for more.

We have seen wonder and fascination bloom in young minds when our first seeds sprouted, the first miniature green tomato was spotted on the vine, or the wisp of a carrot with the faintest tinge of orange was pulled excitedly from the ground.

We have seen dramatic play emerge that includes “watering plants” (dandelions and weeds) on our playground or making “salads” out of the chickweed. Children wonder daily how big our carrots have grown hidden beneath the ground and whether or not our tomatoes are ripe yet. Our newly developed preschool garden has taught us that today’s youth hungers for a stronger connection to the earth, and at Odyssey, we endeavor to help heal this divide.

We had a pre-k farmers market to celebrate the success the children have had nurturing young plants from seed to plant. It was a great success! We all had fun selling our kale and tomato starts, baked goods, lemonade and coffee. We put the money we raised back into our garden fund to sustain our magical garden.

We also celebrated Earth Day this month as a school, and our class was assigned the task of constructing a mammal costume for one student to wear out of recycled materials. We chose a bear, set our class creativity to work, and pre-k won the school costume contest! What a cute bear cub!

This February, one of our playgrounds got a facelift.  A grant and a teacher/parent workday worked wonders (thank you, parents!!) to bring creativity, color, and fun to our outside play-time.  Here are a few pictures: balance beam, bamboo teepee, hanging bamboo, and even a rain barrel cow.  We are feeling so grateful and so lucky!

The children painted gourds that we drilled small holes in, and we hung them up on our jazzy new playground to be birdhouses.

We had a special guest come and teach us the basics of weight training (mostly with pvc pipes).  We have such strong preschoolers!!

It’s been an unseasonably warm winter here in Asheville,

but we’ve still explored the theme of hibernation— the slowing down and conservation

of energy that many plants and animals experience through the winter months.

We read the Ukrainian folk tale, The Mitten, and acted it out with

animal masks the children created.

The masks themselves became a central inspiration

for dramatic play inside, outside, and day after day, as the children became bears,

cheetahs, lions, even unicorns!

We collaboratively painted and collaged a cave for their stuffed animals to “hibernate.”

We also started our greenhouse this month!

The children planted an array of veggie seeds, including

kale, cucumber, tomato, and snap peas.

They take turns watering every day, bringing magnifying

glasses and hats to extend the responsibility into

exploration and play.

We count, examine, describe, measure, and marvel at the wonder of growing things!

The water-filled barrel meant to help heat the greenhouse

is a constant source of amusement.

We read the story My Garden by Kevin Henkes, in which a little girl

imagines a garden where she can grow anything, including

seashells and chocolate rabbits.  We gave the children dried beans

as “seeds,” so they could “plant” their imaginary

gardens with paint.  They ran with the project, and created

some truly creative and inspired painted gardens.

We’ve had a wonderful time learning about how

plants and animals behave in winter, and we’re looking

forward to exploring how we and the plants and animals

in our community shift when spring arrives.

Until spring!!

This December at Odyssey we braved the cold with hats and mittens,

stayed warm inside with stories and dancing,

collected non-perishables to donate to Manna Food Bank,

and celebrated with a Festival of Lights.

Warren Wilson College donated tree wedges for our playground,

and the kids have been having a blast using them in dramatic play.

To celebrate and honor Winter, Odyssey style, the school put on a Festival of Lights.

Each class performed an original piece, and our pre-k drummed, danced, and sang their way through

“This Little Light of Mine.”

 After the performances, the students visited exploratory stations set up around the school,

including glow in the dark face paint, bubbles, a light table, fake snow, and sensory boxes.

This month, the Buncombe County Fire Department came to

share their fire safety wisdom.

The kids checked out the inside of the truck, asked great questions,

and got to see the firemen dressed up in all their gear!

We had a lot of fun with Fall leaves!.

We collected colorful ones and pressed them, we sorted them,

and best of all, we raked big piles to jump in!

We made a gratitude wreath together,

where each child shared something they were grateful for,

and we hung it on our classroom wall.

We brought in the cooler Fall weather this year with a two super fun celebrations, The Big Event (a community event) and a Fall Festival (just for us at Odyssey)

At The Big Event, there was a 5k run for the serious runners, and a Fun Run for the young ones!  We had a craft market, including the Ursa Minor Coffee Truck and Take the Cake!  Cupcakes-a-Go-Go, and Crankypants.

We had artisans and crafters who brought their clothes, jewelry, reusable lunchbags, dolls, ceramics, soap, and jams!  We had live music, face painting, mini golf, an acupuncturist, and a hair stylist putting feathers in people’s hair.

We also had a school-wide celebration called the Fall Festival, complete with live music, apple bobbing, face painting, apple cider, and an outdoor maze made by our high schoolers.

Our kids dressed up and had a blast!

In the early summer months, we explored farms and food of Appalachia through a “Farmer’s Market” theme.

Our wonderful parents brought in fresh, mostly local, veggies and fruit for the children to share and learn about, from local blueberries, to purple and white carrots, to corn they proudly shucked themselves.  We took frequent “field trips” to our school garden to munch on cherry tomatoes.

We worked with local foods nonprofit, ASAP, who generously lent us a fun library of farm-related books to read, including what became perhaps the most popular circle time read,  Monsters Don’t Eat Broccoli.  We also offered parents an ASAP-created, kiddo-focused veggie scavenger hunt designed for our Asheville local markets, including the brand-new Montford market, every Wednesday from 3-6.

We went on a field trip to Long Branch Environmental Education Center, a U-Pick farm where the children (and parents and teachers!) got to harvest blueberries and raspberries.  Some fruit made it home,

although most children (and parents and teachers!) couldn’t resist popping the juicy gems straight into their mouths!

During circle time, we shared and voted for favorite fruits and veggies, and, of course, sang Old-McDonald with animal puppets.

We wrapped this theme up with our very own farmers market!  We spent the week baking and making art to “sell” (everything cost one penny), and the kids set up their “booths” outside the Odyssey front doors to catch the morning crowd.  They sold juice, baked goods, and art, as well as some garden-fresh veggies and fruit parents helped their children bring from home.

We loved seeing their proud faces as they collected pennies in exchange for selling their goods.

This was unanimously one of our favorite units ever.  What could be better than sharing the magic of growing and eating fresh vegetables and fruit with young and curious minds?

To embrace the summertime heat, we splashed around with an August ocean unit.  No coast close enough to visit, but we tried to create an ocean feel in our sunny room.

We fished with magnet poles in an ocean of blue fabric; we swirled our fingers in sand trays; and role-played and sang about seahorses, crabs, fish, and many other sea creatures!

We made a simple version of veggie sushi, which the kids loved wrapping up themselves, and practically inhaled.

Miss Lydia drew and cut out giant whales, seahorses, and dolphins for a group art project: we clothes-pinned the paper animals to the playground fence, handed out aprons, paint, and brushes, and let the kids go wild with these collaborative paintings.

When one of our sweet boys moved up to kindergarten he shared with us this beautiful mixed media piece he  painted of the ocean.

We used some activities from Growing Up Wild, a super fun, nature-based, hands-on, early childhood curriculum:

we drew crayon seascapes with a sparkly blue salt wash on the top.

We pondered many questions during circle time:  How do fish breathe?  Where do seashells come from?  What do you like to do at the beach?  What are your favorite ocean animals?

What a fun theme to explore! From passing around a conch shell to listen to the “ocean” to playing sea animal charades, we think the children learned a lot, and had fun, too!