Orbiting Children

We did a fun thing at group this week. We acted out the earth orbiting the sun and the moon simultaneously orbiting the earth. We played some more of this game later on out on the playground. It was not as easy as you might think! First of all, the child playing the earth must orbit the sun at enough distance to allow the moon to fit in between the earth and the sun. Secondly, the person playing the moon has to really haul in order to keep up with the earth. I took a turn playing the moon, orbited twice and had to quit due to dizziness! But it was fun.

For all you stargazers out there, there is a celestial event happening right now you may wish to get in on. According to www.EarthSky.org, right after nightfall, one can see Venus, Mars and the star Spica in close proximity to each other. Venus is the brightest. Mars is the faintest. They will be visible to the naked eye and will be within a single binocular field as well. But be hasty! They will disappear below the horizon 1.5 hours after sunset.

Just in case people weren’t in a back-to-school mindset, Nature helped us out by providing rain and fall-like temperatures for our first regularly-scheduled week. That brought to our attention how many of the kids did not yet have their rain gear here. Not only to children need raincoats with a hood or waterproof hat, but also boots. It is not sufficient to wear boots to school. One needs to have entirely different footwear for indoors than one wears outdoors. That is how we manage to have relatively unsullied carpets all year even with bunches of pre-schoolers trooping in and out. Please do mark the coats and boots with your child’s name and initials. Their water bottles should be marked as well. We’ve already had some bottles go home with the wrong family, so do take a look at it when your child exits the classroom and make sure it is the right one, please.

Our new student, Izel, returned from two months in Mexico City on Saturday and joined us in the classroom on Tuesday. She is already laboring to restore her English speaking skills, but still seems undaunted to be here with us. What a trooper! I know only enough Spanish to make people think I can understand them when they speak Spanish to me. It gets me into trouble! Fortunately, Dhabih, who’s mom is from Chile has promised to help us out linguistically when needed. We are so fortunate to have his help.

We wish all of you a wonderful Labor Day weekend. Maybe take some time to tell your child what you enjoy about your work!