First Day School continues its general theme this year of “How to find peace.”  During December and the start of January, we mainly had Free Play since so many of our children were traveling or otherwise occupied for the holidays.  We read and performed “The Christmas Fox” story for the meeting’s annual Christmas program on December 14.  We thought about how we might grow in the coming year, and Tristran drew a series of pictures of himself titled “The Evolution of Tristan.”  On January 4, we talked about our favorite animals (including some stuffed critters) and practiced introducing them.  Shiloh used that practice to introduce herself during announcements at the rise of meeting.  On January 11, Amie shared her practice of yoga with the children as her way to find peace.  We will be asking other adults to share their peace practices.

Dungeons and Dragons continues for our older children, led by Adam.  The younger children have Free Play on those weeks, supplemented by simple FDS programs suited for younger children.

FDS is planning to add some beanbag chairs to the meeting room to provide comfortable “chill” spaces for children.  These might be in a “Children’s Corner” (maybe in the old old kitchen adjacent to the meeting room or maybe located between benches against the walls).  Each beanbag chair would have a basket of quiet toys, art supplies, yarn for finger knitting, and books nearby.  This is an experiment that was decided on during the summer meetings in response to concerns about how the meeting could better meet the needs of children and families.  FDS and M&C are looking for feedback on how this goes and how it works for your children.  We will assess whether to continue after we have had some time to get used to the idea.   The hope is that some of our most active littles will be able to settle there, but all children are welcome to sit with their parents or on beanbag chairs during this experiment time. 

FDS could use a few more adults willing to spend one Sunday every month or two helping out with the children.  We have some very young ones who need to be watched, held, or assisted with coloring, pasting, etc.