Dancing has grown as expected as Mickey Cake-making and Thursday Bread.  Sometimes we dance in the kitchen while we wait for the cake to bake.  Sometimes we dance in between the making of the dough and it's rising.  When we do this we dance around the whole school in all the nooks and cranny's and its FUN.  Today we decided to take the music outside.  We started with a 'dance class'.  Lila showed me a few moves she learned from her own dance class out in the world.  She taught us how to do 'The Flamingo' and "Switchy Legs' and also how to do "Rainbow" moves.  Keldon also shared his "Monster Move".  Dance class inspired a very dramatic Swan Lake large dance group around the backyard and onto the grassy area.  Unfortunately the video camera wasn't available to capture the event.  BUT it was available to capture these beautiful gems of gentle, joyful partnership.  Enjoy and thank you to Tracey Dengler (Sophia's mom who was subbing with us) for capturing this play I was immersed in with the children.  Liz

So showing off my own dancing skills is a little embarrassing ;) yet among the children I dance to be playful.  What we 'the children and I do together' is the stuff of our relationship.  And dancing in partnership, following, leading and interpreting moves with another person exercises trust, listening, understanding, flexibility, and willingness to share.  This is Ayush and Mo's second turn dancing together and you can see they have grown knowledgeable of each others moves, they are a little more fluid.  Eve and I are newbies and don't quite understand each others gestures yet we work to remain connected and adapt as the dance goes on.

 Becoming the Teacher-Director at Stepping Stones has been an incredible learning experience.  One great challenge for me is in learning how to balance both jobs of teaching and directing well. My schedule change of office hours on Monday 10.30-5.30 and Wednesday 7.30-5.30 enables longer uninterrupted time to play and learn with the children--My teacher-self likes that a lot. As the supporting teacher of Mickey Cake on Tuesdays and Bread on Thursdays I will begin by sharing some documentation and reflections on this purposeful work.

In the following short clip Tara and I harmonize to a short song that she developed with the children while making bread.  We sang it several times to remember the words and now we sing it every week when we make bread.  Something important about this play is its visibility in adulthood.  Its important for the children to know that parents and teachers can play together too; that we are all connect and that we value the contributions made by family members.  In this instance a little song that is now part of our bread process.

In the following video I wanted to capture the general mood of the morning in which bread-making was a part and I wanted to high-light the after-process of cleaning up after ourselves which can be quite a joyful, musical and collaborative activity.

In this next video, my intent was not only to capture the real living we do around the bread table, like waiting on someone to play, feeling sad, and taking care of our brother, but also the interpretive opportunities we can explore through this medium, both linguistically by enjoying a play on words, but artistically as in Uli's representation of the caterpillar.