Inside a Reggio Inspired Classroom, it is organised and arranged in such a way that the children instinctively know where to locate what they need and where to put them when they are done. Last week I helped with setting up the classroom with little things like laminating and helping out with the class library as my co-teacher is such a professional and has the experience on the look and feel of the classroom. It was exciting as she has moved to a new classroom, so it was setting up the class from scratch! To experience this magic and how much work is involved behind the scenes was so insightful.

I really love the natural materials area where there are magnifying glasses to explore nature close up, something close to my heart where even at my house I have a nature bowl where we collect pinecones, moss and other nature finds.

The class is so full of natural light with plants in the classroom, and eventually, there will be a classroom job of watering the plants by one of the children. The furniture is beautiful and even quite comfortable to sit upon.

The maths area is full of games and manipulatives for the kids to explore math and today as it was my first day in the classroom with children their enthusiasm with the math games was contagious. I was watching the kids play War with the playing cards, and it is all about counting the cards, and we even had a deep conversation about poker!

Beauty and colour are in the classroom with these bead and crystal rainbow window decorations made by the students of the previous year as a gift.

The books are organised in a way that can be categorised easily by the kids, and the books upon the shelf are from the school library focussing on this year’s question of identity. Each year in the classroom the whole school looks at a theme, and each class explores their big question posed by the teacher.

This lovely area offers a place to relax and read a book, and the kids absolutely love it, and next door is the quiet nook where if you need some alone time you can go there behind the curtain and be in peace. Being in the classroom today with 15 excited and social kids was so enjoyable, and I left the work today feeling happy that I get to be with these kids for the rest of the week. I thought I would feel quite exhausted sometimes after I do a volunteer class shift but today I felt happy to have this opportunity to be part of another beautiful community in the Valley.

Our first day back was exciting but to top it off we enjoyed some time outside with the kids watching a total solar eclipse through pin hole cameras either made by the children and parents or our science and math specialist at our school. Even watching the eclipse through a colander was super cool as you could see many crescents on the paper where the kids had interpreted what was happening in a drawing. We are located south of Salem in Oregon was in the path of totality so we saw about 75% of the total eclipse so it did not get dark, though the light did dim a little and the air was cooler. I really enjoyed this experience and it was so good to be outside with the kids, checking out the eclipse using various pinhole cameras made from cereal boxes and the like.

I have read on astrology blogs that it is time to do what you have wanting to be doing for a while – looks like over the last couple of months my path has been slowly carved out to somewhere I am going with my future Education degree! Whether you like frou frou magik or not there’s some good stuff happening here on earth right here, right now 😀