After that, I asked if anyone knew what it meant to be generous. Almost every student raised his or her hand and had an idea about what generosity is. "When was the last time someone was generous with you, and how did their generosity make you feel?" I asked. Everyone agreed that it feels good when others show generosity towards us. I also asked them to think of a time that they were generous with someone else, and how that made them feel. Being generous makes other people around us feel happy, which is usually contagious and the happiness is passed on to us!
During almost every class, we practice several sun salutations. The children raise their arms into the air, and I ask them to imagine that they are grasping the sun between their hands. At the end, I have them bring the sun down to their hearts. Just about every class, one Kindergartener says, "Now my heart is on fire!" with a huge smile on her face.
Art-wise, today we created very detailed self-portraits using mirrors. Our Central Idea for this class is Exploring Magnificent Me, and we are continuing to do this through mindfulness, movement, and art. We talked about what it means to observe, and how artists use observation all the time. I asked the children to try and show every eyelash, every freckle in this self-portrait; to really spend time observing even the smallest details. We will use these drawings as a map to create a self-portrait relief sculpture using many different materials.
