One of the things the school does big time is Mayday. It is especially big for the children of the Lower School and it sort of culminates around Class Three and Four when the children then go out to the Maypole in Holywood - the only one left in Ireland - and dance around it. But before they dance around it on the day, hours of practise go into dancing around it leading up to the event. We walk down to schools or they come up to us, and we then finally have one last go at the main Maypole. All traffic comes to a stop down the road as we tumble out into the street and weave around it with delight.
Our rehearsal day was so hot a bright i did wonder if sunstroke was going to be the order of the day....
yes in Ireland, i know.
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The Barber's pole - i find it a bit worrying that i know the dance from
the way the children are placed and from the way the ribbons are woven |
Not to be out done, our school has its own Maypole celebrations too. For some unknown reason we have a Maypole which the Council gave us and we can therefore practise dancing around it to our heart's content. I said to Kevin, who is featured later, you know you lost so many days building because we were dancing around the Maypole. And then i laughed. Only in our school could you say that was literally true. It's not just an expression. We really were dancing around the Maypole.
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| Here the children do double weaving |
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| All dressed up for the presentation to the May Queen |
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| Ghin and Dougie and the May Queen's attendants |
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| Afterschool club |
Thomas now runs the after school and he has the best activities on all the time. This time the children are learning to basket weave and shave a piece of wood on the shaving horse. This gets my vote as the best after school club EVER. But when i went there to see him, the these two boys were sitting in the sunshine, with cherry blossoms all falling around them and they were busily working away with their hands. Today Thomas and i also looked at the new compost bins area. I am SOOOOOOO excited because we are going to have three ginormous compost bins and they will be the first part of the garden to go biodynamic. When they are ready Thomas will put the prep into them and then we will slowly start converting the garden... and finally i will get a Maria Hune calendar and we will then be up and running.
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| I get my Forest School Qualification! |
Our school is now a certified Forest School and i have my Level 3 Forest School Qualification. I am very excited because i can now run these sessions on my own, technically. But in reality i will still have someone with me. This year Forest School will start in September. We do Man and Animal and i can't wait. I can't wait starting to line up people to talk to the children and take lots of field trips out to various parts of Northern Ireland to see the incredible wildlife this country has to offer. I want the children to KNOW how special this place and why they must look after it....
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| And this is what our bench now looks like |
The bench is taking shape nicely. John Scovel is coming to do a workshop on mosiac design with the children and then he and Kevin will run a mosaic workshop. I want to talk about the back of the bench which is now filled with bits of the garden debris. In the past this was fine - i mean it was fine in that the shed covered it. Now it is exposed and when the time is right we will tidy it up and it will become a scented hillock with chamomile and thyme and savoury and all sort of good things. It will be a place to sit or to roll down or to just come and enjoy the garden... i can't already see the bees buzzing and butterflies flapping about there.
I said to Kevin that i want the garden to be a biodynamic wildlife garden. This conversation sort of started because i am beginning to discover that the practise of biodynamic gardening or farming, while is better of wildlife actually does not factor wildlife into its consciousness in an obvious way. I mean, yes our school garden is filled with all kinds of birds - but really, for instance, we were talking about the flowform. It takes it water from the pond which is now filled with tadpole. Thankfully the pump is not working now, BUT how could we put a pump into a pond for a flowform and say that's ok while it minces up the tadpoles? And other wildlife. Also the pond has to horrible wire cage over it... which makes it difficult for wildlife to get to. Why did we build such a deep pond when we have small children in the school? Anyway, these are the millions of questions we get to ponder with the garden.
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Kevin playing with concrete
We cast concrete for the ends of the bench |
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| Youth circus |
Then finally, you know summer is here when the Festival of Fools rolls into town.... Oisin is part of the Youth circus. He has really grown up with the circus and so have many of these children here. They have all attended circus school now since they were totes and my goodness, it is great to see how fantastic they are. Oisin has contemplated doing circus while he is waiting to decide what he will become. I just think that it is such an awesome thing to be able to do - use your body to so wonderful things.
And so that was a small sample of this week....We had the bestest fun.
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