Smiling, squealing, Kindergarten “Mariposas” had a lovely first week of school, continuing several long-held Rainbow Mountain traditions. Beginning with themselves, students created self portraits, talked about their families, and each day shared individual reflections at the Closing Circle. Every morning with friends they explored their classroom finding seashells, river rocks, blocks, kitchen items, wooden animals, magic stones and much more. Along with teachers Doreen and Joy, they sang songs, did yoga, created watercolors, heard stories and learned how to “shake their sillies out!” Within the wider Rainbow community, they hosted a visit by the first grade class, introduced themselves to director Renee Owen, and played soccer with the second and third grade students. Mariposas will have numerous enriching experiences as they cross the bridge between the magical, creative playfulness of preschool and the cognitive development of the elementary years.

Our silly Mariposas!

Unfortunately, in conventional education with its atmosphere of tesing, children early on learn that mistakes are the worst thing they can make.  SKR argues that in the American educational system, children are educated out of their creativity.

To see all of Sir Ken Robinsons’s TED speech titled “Do Schools Kill Creativity?,” visit Do Schools Kill Creativity?  SKR has classic English wit, so be prepared to be entertained AND educated.

Our mission statement includes the word “discovery.”  We agree with Sir Ken Robinson when he claims that children are born creative, and our job as educators isn’t to teach them how to be creative, but how to enhance their creativity and make is useful.  Both at school at home, we want our children to feel safe to explore, try new things, and to learn from their mistakes.

Later they told me it is going to be the best year ever! 

Thank you Rainbow Community)for being a part of making my children enjoy school, love learning, and getting to be a part of an amazing community.

Love, [parent of two children]

You may have seen the phrase “Education
from the Heart for the Heart” as a tag line in
some of Rainbow’s advertisements. This isn’t
just a catchy phrase. Certainly, it speaks to the
loving care that Rainbow teachers provide, but it
means even more: Rainbow believes that we
are at the forefront of a societal shift to a more
heart-centered era.

If we are to create a society that is peaceful,
sustainable, and spiritually fulfilling, it is going to
happen one heart at a time. At Rainbow, we
believe we are helping to usher in a more heart centered
era by educating our children holistically.
This issue of Heart of the Matter describes heart centered
education and explains what the term
“heart-centered” really means.

Download the August issue

For the past month Rainbow Mountain students have been learning alongside Asheville artist preparing for Imagine! An Asheville Arts Extravaganza. Fine artist, performance artist, and musicians have been all over campus. Jon Cooley is a little of all three and he is working with fourteen fourth through sixth-graders. First he taught them how to make a dulcimer and now they are learning how to play it.

Yesterday the Rainbow Mountain Dulcimer Players put on a performance at Barnes & Noble in the Asheville Mall. They started with the first song they learned on the dulcimers, Mary Had a Little Lamb. They also entertained us with This Land is Our Land, and Ode to Joy as well as Groundhog and other songs.

It was a great show and we look forward to seeing them on stage May 20th at Imagine!

The sun was out all week, a rarity for an Asheville spring, and Kingsley Pugh took full advantage of it. He invited any interested Rainbow students to paint, outside, on paper parasols. And although the kids thought it all great fun it was more than that. Kingsley will be selling the colorful parasols at this weekend’s earthday festival. Proceeds from the sale will fund four solar panels on Rainbow Mountain’s “new” building. Kingsley’s company Harvest The Sun  is donating the labor.

Lauren Rosenfeld came to lead a workshop on her new book Your To-Be List.

Maureen’s groundbreaking book, 365 Perfect Things to Say to Your Kids, is making quite a splash in the world of conscious parenting.   Her unique background blends Eastern and Western thinking so that parents, grandparents, childcare specialists and any adult can learn simply yet powerful tools of fostering a child’s joy.

With 20 years of experience, Maureen has traveled the world fostering children’s positive emotional health.  She has even lived at the Base of the Himalayas and been named a “Creative Activist” by Creative Visions Foundation.   Maureen also contributes actively to the field with a popular Psychology Today blog and more.
Additional information: http://www.growinghappykids.com/

Three schools come together with three service-learning projects and one idea: to learn to change the world.

By doing a good turn, known as “tikkun olam “ in Judaism, change in our corner of the world can lead to change around the world. Hands of Hope consists of a several month service-learning project in partnership between a school and local non-profit and concluding with a community-wide benefit concert.

The Hands of Hope family concert will feature Billy Jonas at The Orange Peel on Sunday, March 21st 2010. Tickets for the concert are available in our office, at our partner schools; Odyssey Community School and Maccabi Academy or at the door.

Each school will share their community work at the event so come early to visit tables and see what they’ve accomplished. Local businesses sponsoring Hands of Hope will be present as well.

We hope you will join us in this community-wide event to be a part of changing the world!

Watch the rehearsal video: http://www.wlos.com/shared/newsroom/learning/wlos_vid_501.shtml

Every year Rainbow first-graders explore Africa through a large thematic unit which includes animals, food, biomes and stories and dances of its many cultures. African music was the focus when two members of the Asheville based Toubab Krewe visited the first and third graders to talk about their own experiences and play music they learned on their many travels to Africa’s Ivory Coast.

Toubab Krewe is an instrumental band which fuses the music of Mali with American musical styles. Drew Heller, a Rainbow Mountain preschool alumni, and band mate, Justin Perkins, strummed the guitar and plucked the Kora, a string instrument made from a large gourd. Justin learned to play the kora while in Africa and it was the stories of their time there that they shared with the kids.The children watched in awe, swayed to the rhythm and asked all sorts of questions like, “What does Africa smell like?”

Drew said it was great to come back and share music with the students.

A special thanks to Andi Morrell who contacted Toubab Krewe and encouraged them to come visit our school.