First graders have been studying the rock cycle, and they’re learning it through the seven domains: the mental domain, creative, and natural, among others.
The story of Piedra
Have you heard of Piedra? She’s the main character in the story their teacher, Rachel, told. Students gathered around while they heard the tale of Piedra, whose journey spanned MILLIONS of years.
Rachel told of how Piedra lived in Appalachia, then made her way to a nearby river where she stayed for hundreds of thousands of years. Over the course of that time, she witnessed turtles, ducks and river otters going about their lives. Little by little, Piedra rolled and rolled downriver, eventually finding herself out at sea. Piedra saw sea animals that she’d never seen before swimming all around her.
Millions of years in the making…
Gradually sand and silt from the sea bottom began to cover her up until she was completely buried, taking about 20,000 years to happen. Piedra stayed there for another million years until she felt a warmth coming from the earth. She felt a whoosh and before she knew what happened, she erupted through a volcano as hot lava, and immediately cooled once she hit the air. She emerged once again as a rock upon a mountain. Only this time, she was a rock who had changed.
Through this compelling story, students learned about how a rock might go through the entire rock cycle. They talked about other cycles they might be familiar with: the lava cycle, the water cycle, and the butterfly cycle.
Illustrating the Rock Cycle
After students heard the story, they had an opportunity to create an illustration of the rock cycle. Miss Rachel led them through a guided drawing.
They began with a line.
Followed by a volcano.
Next they erased the left part of the line and replaced it with a wavy ocean line.
They followed that with a “lava ball”…
…that grew into a lava chute.
They erased the top of the volcano to allow the lava to exit the earth, and had some fun drawing globs of lava “splashing out and spilling over the side”.
Next came creative layers that represented millions of years of creation.
The final steps were to go over their pencil lines in marker…
…and fill in their drawings with watercolors.
Our first graders now can tell you all about the rock cycle, starting with a tiny little rock on the side of a mountain.
Quan Yin is a Buddhist deity of compassion. Her spiritual archetype, however, exists across many different religions and cultures. Mother Mary within Christianity and Sophia within Gnosticism, for example, represent similiar all-loving and all-merficul qualities. Many beautiful art pieces, theater skits, short stories and community projects were born out of Domain Day. This one, however, stands out as a unique integration of the creative and spiritual domains beautifying and uplifting our campus.
The Spiritual Domain Group designed and built this shrine with Quan Yin as its center piece. She had long stood by the water-feature in the outdoor classroom, before Rainbow teachers and Spiritual Domain Group leaders, Mark Hanf and Justin Pilla, spotted her and felt her to be the perfect point of inspiration from which to build a shrine. After having smudged the area with sage, the dozen students began by placing their own personal artifacts within the center of an imaginary circle. Students then took turns placing the large rocks in a measured and intentional formation to mark the boundary of the shrine. Max had been gathering these large obelisk- and sphere-shaped stones over the course of several visits to the same enchanted forrest creek. The mindfulness with which every piece of this altar was put together cast a spell of wonder over the young spiritualists. In between building the shrine, they picked up instruments from a blanket lined with shakers and hand drums to accompany the ceremony with music.
In its second year as an ‘annual Rainbow celebration’ Domain Day has received extremely positive feedback from students and teachers alike. Within a small multi-age group, students get to spend a whole day focusing on a domain they feel passionate about. They can choose between the physical, natural, social, emotional, creative, mental, and spiritual domains. This intentional time spent with teachers who have also been called to that particular domain gives students the opportunity to embody that domain more fully. And because each domain is connected, and linked to the greater whole, a student’s comfort in one domain inherently empowers their understanding of the others. In this domain group’s case, each student was able to embody the spiritual domain’s cornerstones of ritual, world religions, contemplation, and communion with the natural world, while simultaneously working through the challenges and gifts of the creative, social, and natural domains.
Thank you, Spiritual Domain Group, for leaving behind this radiant evidence of your connection to spirit. You have altered our space and given us a sanctuary at which to breath and center. We invite all who stop by our campus to visit Quan Yin, and if inspired, to leave her a token of gratitude.
Congratulations to Rainbow students Cady in second grade, and Isabella and Kafira in fifth grade! Earlier this year these young artists submitted poems and paintings to River Link‘s ‘Voices of the River Art and Poetry Contest’. And then just a few days ago, on Saturday morning, they were honored with their awards at RiverLink’s Earth Day Kids Festival! As first place winners, their art stood out to the local artists acting as judges for its design, composition, and originality. This year the PreK through 12th grade students who submitted their art were invited to make art in answer to the question, how are you connected to your watershed? Thank you so much to River Link for your support in connecting our love of the Earth with our passion of the arts.
After a lengthy process of writing, editing, and submitting her stunning poem, The Bloom of Peace, to the WNC4Peace Poetry contest, Kafira Adams was presented with the Issac Colemen Poetry Peace Award last Saturday at the Center for Art and Spirit. Kafira is a current 5th grader at Rainbow Community School. She turns to poetry under every life circumstance. When asked why she writes, Kafira responded, “I write when I’m happy, sad, mad, bored. I write poetry all the time, really, whenever I’m feeling anything at all” Her fourth grade teacher, Susie Robidoux, who supported Kafira in writing and submitting her poem last spring, affirms Kafira’s passion for poetry, “She really knows who she is as a writer. When I suggested a small edit here or there, Kafira advocated strongly for her choice.”
At the awards ceremony, Kafira and Susie were joined by the two remarkable Peace Makers of the Year recipients, Holly Roach and Delores Williams. These inspiring women were being honored for their social justice work within Asheville’s chapters of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) and Black Lives Matter respectively. At the heart of WNC4Peace, lies a drive to attain peace through justice. Kafira’s Poetry award is named in honor of Issac Coleman, himself an activist as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960’s, and later in life the founder of Read to Succeed.
Kafira demonstrated her understanding of the connection between justice and peace in her Author’s Notes. She writes, “As a seed, it is hard and difficult to take the risk to grow. This is similar to the challenges that people face in life that encourage them to act with peace” The path to peace is full of challenges and tests. Kafira’s poem begs the question, how can we encounter these challenges and these injustices with the same resiliency and grace with which a seed is urged to grow into a sprout? We are very proud of Kafira’s beautiful writing and her commitment to peace. As a school we are honored to teach children like Kafira who know they have something valuable to share with the world. In expressing her creativity and giving voice to nature’s inherent intelligence, Kafira has herself become the very thing she writes about: “a symbol of peace… a reminder for the world”.
The Bloom of Peace
by Kafira Adams
The seed is planted peacefully not knowing what is ahead.
Not knowing what it will become.
The seed sleeps quietly dreaming about peace.
It is awakened abruptly as it hears the cracking of its outer pod.
Scared and unsure what to do next,
It hides.
Thinking about mother earth, the seed trusts the future.
Pushing through the soil, it emerges gracefully.
Suddenly joy and happiness burst through the sprout
As it feels pride in its accomplishment.
Thinking back
It falls into sleep.
Days pass as nature protects and helps the spout grow into a bud.
Thinking that time should not be wasted the bud tries to burst
But is not ready yet.
It waits patiently in the sun knowing the right moment will come.
Knowing that it will be soon.
It sits.
The time has come.
The bud bursts into bloom
A beautiful bright rainbow
For all to appreciate.
Done with its journey the flower sits and smiles at the sun.
A symbol of peace…A reminder to the world.
Author’s Note:
This poem was inspired by the idea that nature is a great symbol of a human’s journey of walking a peaceful path. As a seed, it is hard and difficult to take the risk to grow. This is similar to the challenges that people face in life that encourage them to act with peace. However, if we act together, (much like how a flower depends on the soil, water and sun) our struggle is more manageable. Even though the journey is hard, it is worth it to get to peace. In the end, the beauty is seen and felt by all, like a flower’s bloom.
From January through March 42 students from as young as six-years-old to as old as thirteen-years-old gathered every Friday to create magic together. The magic invoked was theater at its finest complete with pirates, heroes, and villains. This fun twist on the old Treasure Island classic by Robert Louis Stevenson featured Josie, an adventurous and courageous young girl, as the main character. The theme of the play was one of empowerment, imagination, and actualization as Josie learns that in the end it truly is always her adventure no matter what obstacles and challenges come her way. As the performance drew nearer it became clearer and clearer that these youngsters were transforming and evolving not only as confident young actors and techies, but also as an extremely multi-aged and connected ensemble. Whispered cues were hurriedly exchanged backstage as actors reminded each other of their blocking, while stagehands stepped into their less visible yet powerful roles of supporting the production as a whole. By the time the curtains closed on that epic first and last performance, those 42 students stood together as friends, artists, storytellers, performers, and family. Huzzah and congratulations to these brave pirates!
