I hope this message finds you well and enjoying these beautiful spring days. Each season brings its own energy to the school, and the energy of spring is one of my favorite. By this point in the school year, our kids are fully settled into routines and feel very comfortable with their roles in the classroom. They are feeling confident about what they are working on and they know that that summer is quickly approaching. This realization of an upcoming sustained break from school encourages them to make the most of their time at school, and while this realization increases some stressors, the energy of spring helps keep them regulated.

One of the highlights of our return to school since Spring Break was the Wildflower parent book club. As you may know, we read the book Self-Reg by Stuart Shanker. The core idea of this book is the belief that much of what has been traditionally identified as misbehavior, is in fact the result of stress.  The book identifies five areas of our lives that cause stress in our lives and those of our children. These areas are biological stresses, emotional stresses, cognitive stresses, social stresses, and pro-social stresses. Shanker encourages us to become curious about how these stresses affect us so that we can reframe behavior we are seeing or experiencing. Doing so allows us to recognize stressors, reduce their effect on us, reflect and enhance our stress awareness, and finally restore our energy. There are no easy answers in this process, but that is largely because there are no easy answers in life. We need to be curious and continue to explore our feelings so that we can unpack the reason behind behaviour.

As a new addition to Wildflower, I am also getting into the cycles of the school. It was wonderful to see the culmination of learning that has occurred just before and after Spring Break. Our classes are now beginning their final phase of learning on their year long theme. It has been wonderful to see the depth of exploration that has occurred in their areas of inquiry. One project I wanted to highlight is the creation of scale model birds. Students in Kirsten’s, Heather, and Emily’s class used what they were learning about ratios and fractions to outline and draw birds. The birds are decorating hallways, classrooms, and our library. Come on in and check them out if you haven’t already.