Mosaics and Teacher bonding

As we proceed through our planned phases of construction, the backyard is starting to look quite beautiful!  Our garden is thriving and, even though "strawberry hill" isn't living up to it's name (strawberries typically don't produce a whole lot the first year they are moved or planted), it's still a lot of fun to run up and over, again and again, as Silas demonstrated today.  Claire worked the rounds with her squirt bottle, making sure each plant got a drop or two before moving on to the next one. 

The garden is nearing completion, all that is left is to finish the inside of the greenhouse, we still need shelves and cabinets to get it ramped up for the fall growing season.  Now we are going to be focused on the eastern side of the yard, turning it into a magical sensory garden full of sweet smelling herbs, sound installations and mosaic murals for both seeing and touching!  Imagine sitting on a bench surrounded by flowers and herbs, just blowing bubbles and sitting in the shade smelling sage and mint, watching children pick lavender and hunt for strawberries among the flowers.  Children stop to ring the wind chimes or bang on an earth drum and continue on their way, the path curving around a giant hill outfitted with a slide where others are running up the hill and sliding down the slide again and again.  The path finally takes them to a quite, circular cobb structure with low walls to lean against, pillows to rest on and a first class seat to the fully open views of the trees and the sky beyond. 




Broken, Sorted and Ready to Go!

 

Dorje and Bonnie create a cool
mountain scene

On Friday, the 1st of July, we had a staff work day and created mosaic mural panels to place along the length of the wooden fence. 


Sun, Moon and Stars



Flowers and worms, of course!

Everyone contributed ideas and artwork and effort to design these beautiful mosaics! 



Right now, we are about 70% done with making the panels themselves, gluing the broken tiles to the boards.  We'll finish creating and gluing the other 2 panels and then we will need to grout them and hang all eight of them on the fence!   It will be fun to see how this is going to add to the children's experience in the playground.





The ants go marching....

 



It was nice that we got to work on these right next to their
final home on the fence.

 

Volunteer Information:
We are HAPPY, so very happy to accept volunteer help on this project, no prior experience is needed, none of us have ever done this before either!  And we'll happily work around your schedule, whether it's during the day or on evenings / weekends.  We love you parents, thanks for believing in us, thanks for being on board and helping with this fantastic project!