March News and Notes

Welcome Leila Day Families to March 2024:

March is the month of awakenings and rebirth in the natural world. March 19th is the first day of Spring and the Full Sap or Worm Moon occurs on March 25th. The earth is thawing, animals that hibernate are waking up and getting active, birds are returning from their Fall migration, insects are hatching, the sap is running up and down the trees with the alternation between cold nights and warm days, and that perennial harbinger of Spring, the Skunk Cabbage, is beginning to sprout. At Leila Day we are busy "spring cleaning," getting ready for the gardening season, looking for signs of Spring, and waking up to all the possibilities for wondering, exploring, learning and growing.

During the month of March families who attend Leila Day celebrate the holidays of Lent and Easter (Christian), Purim (Jewish), Holi (Hindu), and Ramadan (Muslim). While we do not sanction or celebrate any particular religious holidays, we are committed to acknowledging and exploring different cultural traditions and welcome your family funds of knowledge in these areas. Patty Smith Hill, principal of the Louisville Experimental Kindergarten, first president of the National Association of the Education of Young Children, who wrote "Happy Birthday," and who believed in the "importance of self-determination in children's activities," was born 3/27, 1868. You will notice that the teachers here make great efforts to arrange the learning environment in such a way as to foster children's independence and encourage their agency and ability to make constructive choices. Fred Rogers, born 3/20/1928, liked to sing: "Let's make the most of this beautiful day/ Since we're together, might as well say/ Would you be my, could you be my, Won't you be my neighbor?" Let's use this month of March to get to know one another better and make the most of each day.

Here at Leila Day, we use the awakening of the earth and the coming of Spring to wake up and pay attention to all the comings and goings of the natural world. Aldo Leopold in reflecting on the great return of gaggles of Canada Geese in March, remarks that a certain "educated lady" he was talking to "had never heard or seen the geese that twice a year proclaim the revolving seasons to her well insulated roof." He wonders out loud, "Is [conventional] education possibly a process of trading in awareness, for things of lesser worth?" Use Spring to "wake up," along with the rest of the natural world, find ways to build more democratic, multicultural, and caring communities, and ultimately become better neighbors to each other. As teachers, parents, and human beings, let's learn how to fine tune our awareness of the world in such a way as to be better able to attune ourselves to all of life's possibilities. And in doing so, let's help our children find ways to connect with the natural world, engage with their communities, and live in better harmony with the earth and each other.

Happy Spring,

Charlie Malone