ECOLECLAIRE FONTAINE MAY 2020
Features: Art Emotions The Universe
2019 / Volume 4/ Issue 9
CO N T EN T S Ecole Claire Fontaine p2 p3 p4 p6 p8 p10
Contents Calendar Bir thdays The Places We Will Go Taking to the Skies in Popsicle Planes Flying Fantasies
p14 p16 p17 p18 p21 p22
Rafting Bioluminescence Full Moon Mandala Painting fr om the Soul Stor y Time & Book Lists Adver tise with Ecole Clair e Fontaine
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CA L EN D A R June 2020 The Month of June Enjoy Your Online Lessons and our Daily 10:00 am Zoom Thur sday, June 11 June Bir thdays celebrate during our 10:00 am Zoom
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BI RT H D AYS May & June 2020
May Andrejs Birdie Djuna Hélio
June
Juliet
Amelie
Lucien F
Bowie
Monroe
Elia
Nova Svea
Olivia Wilder TR
Tessa H Yaz 4 ECOLE CLAIRE FONTAINE
Sarah Tessa
This month we will celebr ate bir thdays dur ing the June 11th 10:00 am ECF Children's Chat on Zoom. Joyeux anniversaire enfants! 5 ECOLE CLAIRE FONTAINE
Movement Beginning with Basics& Bicycles
As the weeks pass and we meet on Zoom, our focus is tur ning toward reuniting. The Fountain Campus remodel is speeding along. Fresh activities and classes are being hatched, while the tr ied and tr ue are renewed. The gardens are in spr ingtime bloom and the scent of sea air is leading us back together. We miss you all and are amazed by the beauty and resilience of our community - the ar tists, gardener s, mask- maker s, musicians and wr iter s. Until we again meet in per son remember to drop us your photos at Media@LAClairefontaine.or g. This month has had the children Zooming for ward - the mobility, movement and voyages to reunite our 6 ECOLE CLAIRE FONTAINE
families. Peddling, rowing, har nessing the power of the wind, heating the air and rolling on wheels, we are gear ing up to visit our loved ones. Whether the bike path is open or closed, Ecole Claire Fontaine' is missing the days of children cycling speedy circles around the campuses. Oh the places we will go, when it is safe to do so... the Camper Campus, Abbot Kinney & the new Fountain Campus. Keeping in mind that as a school the safety of children is our number one pr ior ity, there will be responsible adjustments to our days. The details will come and frequent hand washing will remain habitual. Until we see you again...
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Oh to Fly Creative EngineersTake to the Sky
"M y number
one super power is to be able to fly." Mine too... the power to visit our far- away families and fr iends the wold over. While absorbing the tales from Le Petit Prince, the children created air planes from clothespins, popsicle sticks, r ubber bands and propeller s. The designs became intr icate as propeller s spun freely catching the wind. Fascinated by flight, we are all ready to get our selves moving, but fir st, we set up our supplies. To create a cubby for cur ious ar tists, we begin with a combination of 8 ECOLE CLAIRE FONTAINE
recyclables - cans, paper bags, pipe cleaner s, tin foil, toilet rolls and wr apping paper. To put it together, watch Gwendoline's quick time video.
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Art & Archery
The Fantasy of Flight Up, Up & Away in Our Beautiful Balloons
Steered
by the wind, flying fast temper ate speed. They are fantastical across fields and lakes, a hot air flyer s, great exper iments in science balloon could gr ant the ultimate and a joy to behold. escape. Some claim the earliest use of hot air balloons was 1,500 year s ago in Per u to aid in creating the Nazca Lines, while the basic technology existed in China as early as 220- 280 AD. However, as it goes, the hot air balloon did not make These museum pieces in the sky still any sor t of a splash in our collective evoke myster y in the unknown, the histor ical memor y until the French unexplored, as they float loftily at a got hold of it.
Known in French as a Montgolfière, the hot air balloon may have a stilted reputation for being a lot of show with little pr actical pur pose, but so be it.
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professor willing to take a tethered r ide. As winter neared in Par is, the Montgolfier s sent another balloon into the sky with two human passenger s. Benjamin Fr anklin wrote of that November day: "We obser ved it lift off in the most majestic manner. When it reached around 250 feet in altitude, The Montgolfier s were paper the intrepid voyager s lowered their manufacturer s and had begun their hats to salute the spectator s. We could project by exper imenting with the not help feeling a cer tain mixture of effect of heated air directed into a awe and admir ation.? paper bag. Their fir st hot air balloon, Onlooker s gasped, some fainted tr aveling two kilometer s, was made of while other s climbed onto city roofs in silk and lined with paper. an attempt to chase the balloon as it A month later, they found a physics
In September of 1783 two brother s, the Montgolfier s, demonstr ated their invention for Louis XVI. It car r ied with it a duck, a rooster and a sheep, all of whom retur ned to the ground relatively unhar med, at least physically.
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floated far out of reach. For some, the new invention was the culmination of Enlightenment science, the pinnacle of human ingenuity that officially ended just four year s later with the French Revolution in 1789. Scores of skeptics over the centur ies developed a strong belief that the hot air balloon was more lar ge beast than delicate silk beauty, and was a bit oafish as it was unable to be steered. But what about the magic of occasionally letting the breeze direct your cour se? We prefer to live with the children in the clouds on this one, floating through space and time, imaginations sparking and eyes lit with fire. Their demonstr ations of hot air fantasy this month, Zoom though it has been, could loftily send us all across continents.
Using beans, moss and shells a spectacular sea scene comes to life. 12 ECOLE CLAIRE FONTAINE
p 10 The story of the Montgolfier brothers pp 10-12 Zoom creations p 13 Illustration of the Montgolfier brothers' first hot air balloon
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We Take to the Sea Le Petit Radeau to the Rescue
As a month motivated by movement
their projects quite quickly. Throughout the Zooms, "it is often astonishing," teacher Mar ina notes, "to obser ve them being so creative and thoughtful." The r afts led to explor ing books about the ocean, pebbles and rocks in the shape of hear ts.
and tr avel, the children hit the water ways with fish in the deep and r afts floating past. Using corks, glue, paper, r ubber bands and scissor s, students cr afted their r afts before navigating the swells in bowls of ocean. Each ?r adeau? floated like a r ay on the The unity the children share with one water? children blowing billowing another and their school is strong as sails across a dish of sea. the tides, leaving Mar ina musing, ?Love The children are spectacularly mobile is our r aft that will always car r y us on the waves of life.? in their movements, coming up with 14 ECOLE CLAIRE FONTAINE
Le radeau Adapted from Le bateau vogue...
Le radeau vogue sur la mer, et explore le ciel et la terre. Le radeau vogue sur l'océan, et résiste bien au vent. Il explore les îles en évitant les crocodiles au bord du Nil.
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Dive into the Milky Way The spiral galaxy dancesfrom sky to ocean
With the Coronavir us closures many
In early Apr il, daily CO2 emissions tempor ar ily fell 17 percent to levels last seen in 2006.
Dur ing May's algae bloom, the Souther n Califor nia coast of the Pacific Ocean became sparkly blue. Most of us just had ocean backgrounds on our computer s at the time, but this was one of the lar gest phytoplankton bioluminescent red tides that have occur red at our beaches for about a decade. Pollutants and stor ms can tr igger red tides.
We wish this could be considered tr uly good news, but of cour se by 2006 we were already deep into the climate cr isis. This cur rent br ief decrease will have little to no effect on accumulative CO2 levels.
Each algae in the bioluminescence lights up only one time per 24 hour s. Imagine how many there are if they light up so br ightly when a swimmer moves an ar m, or a wave breaks at shore.
of us noticed clearer skies, animals and birds seeming more active, and the oceans enjoying a repr ieve. Was it just a break from humans or did the fall of CO2 emissions really make that much of a difference?
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Full Moon Mandala Mandala de la pleine lune
The
Mandala is a geometr ic figure representing the univer se in Hindu and Buddhist symbolism. "Mandala" means circle in Sanskr it and although it could have other shapes within it like a square or tr iangle, it always retur ns to its concentr ic nature.
As the children created their own, they discovered the repetition of the basic geometr ical shape of a circle, the symmetr y of the inner patter ns. Teacher s note the allusion to a full moon in the work of each student.
In keeping with its or iginal meaning, The balancing of all the visual the mandala of a child represents their elements within a mandala symbolize world, dreams and desires, the har mony and unity. abundance in the univer se. 17 ECOLE CLAIRE FONTAINE
Expressionism Painting Our Soulsfrom Chagall to the Skies
Family Day found us focusing -
even more - on our foundation at home. Who are your people and from where do you come? We our bor n into families and we can create them. A family is the bir th place of emotional intelligence.
We do what we lear n, the iter ation is life- long. The beginnings are cr ucial and kindness is key. Teach empathy by showing facial expressions and pr actice being empathetic to your child. They are quite small, no matter how giant their roar.
Helping your children to lear n about their own emotions, the big feelings and how to empathize with other s, is a lengthy jour ney.
Remember the simple things - all feelings are fine, pr actice naming each one, and str ategize tools to use when they stampede through the soul.
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Ar t is an excellent tool and children love under standing where they come from. Tr ace their family or igins with paints, pencils, pens and paper or through photogr aphs that follow their lineage. Making family trees that tr ace their roots and maps of the rooms in which they live can aid in keeping children's feet on the ground until they can again walk barefoot through the park and sand. As a family, feel fabulous as often as you can, children smile on aver age 400 times per day. 19 ECOLE CLAIRE FONTAINE
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Story Time at the Met Tr avel in books as far as you fancy live on Thur sdays at 9:00 am PST with the Metropolitan Museum of Ar t stor y time. If the time to join live on Facebook conflicts you may listen to the latest stor y, "Sparky" on the website or catch up anytime on Youtube.
Read with the New York Public Library In honor of 125 year s since it opened on May 23, 1895, the New York Public Libr ar y has cur ated a libr ar ian- approved list of 125 children's books for ages 0 - 12. If some of your favor ites are left off the list, note that one of the r ules was that only one selection per author or ser ies could be included. With Patience & For titude, also the names Libr ar y Lions that have gr aced the 5th Avenue steps since that same day in 1911, your family may be able to get through the titles before the next anniver sar y. 21 ECOLE CLAIRE FONTAINE
W IT H OUR
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Homeopat hic Medicine & Nat ur al Remedies for Childr en & Adult s ht t ps://shopollois.com/
Marie-Paul Baxiu, CCH, CHI, ICE, Childbirth Hypnosis Training www.easybirthing.com
www.VeniceOceanarium.org
Ecole Claire Fontaine's Mindfulness Teacher, Connie, and her colleagues from Wor thy Beyond Pur pose give half hour sessions in mindfulness & meditation on Mindful Mondays in June at 11:00 - 11:30 am Donations accepted CoherentBody.com Fridays at 11:00 am with Sue Choi
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