This week…

…started with partner acrobatics and will end shortly with a candle-lit gratitude circle (and probably a story-telling game).  I’m really tired and really happy.

In the space this week, we had visitors come in to offer Taijichuan, an improv game called “Park Bench,” and over 3 hours of partner acrobatics. The kids are also in a language-and-history groove right now, so I heard a lot of Duolingo sounds and discussions of Chronology game cards.

I offered to screen an animated film in French — Kirikou — on Tuesday, expecting maybe one or two kids to start the film and not sure if any would sit through the whole thing (the pacing is not as fast as in US American movies). In reality, we started with two kids watching, in the middle we decided to allow food in the Red Room so people who were curious wouldn’t have to leave for lunch, and by the end we had all the kids in the school in one room watching a clever baby save his village. Kids who had initially walked in and declaring the movie “really weird” left excited about all kinds of things: French, the music, folktales, how the ending was different from most Disney movies, etc.  While the partner acrobatics was certainly the most personally challenging and exciting of offerings that I participated in this week, screening Kirikou ended up being the most rewarding because of the conversations it led to.

As per always, a million other things happened. I read the Hans Christian Anderson version of The Little Mermaid aloud with Askani, and we talked about writing a version where the Little Mermaid is a lesbian and not interested in the prince. I interviewed Douglas about “Werewolves” for my other blog post, drew mandalas on a giant piece of paper with Askani and Taina (and Tomis!), and printed out two of Roald Dahl’s short stories (“William and Mary” and “The Sound Machine”) after spawn point conversations about brains-in-jars and talking plants.

Evenings this week were filled with the Assembly Meeting, my first Rosh Hashanah dinner, and a New Parents’ Interest Night. These all went well, but they meant that I wasn’t home much this week and so didn’t really feel the passing of the days. Even as I facilitated Change-Up this morning, I kept almost calling it Set-The-Week.

Time to go print out Trello “Done” columns 🙂