Making Wishes to Create Culture
August 13, 2016Relationships and trust take time to build, and it’s from these two foundations that you can grow a healthy culture. One of the most amazing experiences I’ve had as an educator since I’ve been working with children (over 17 years) has been here at ALC Mosaic where I’ve had the… Read more
The Art of Facilitation & The Facilitation of Art
July 18, 2016Intro & Context ALF Summer, year three is in session! It’s been the most fun and collaborative ALF Summer yet. Last year, @artbrock spent many, many hours working on our Starter Kit with the ALFs and launched the Beta Starter Kit at the end of the summer. Since then, we’ve… Read more
Creating Culture, Year After Year
July 4, 2016Yesterday, @tomis, @charlotte and I were in the school cleaning up after summer camps in preparation for this year’s ALF Summer program. All of our white boards will be repurposed for the use of the adults coming to dive into an intensive ALC experience, meaning that our Community Mastery Board… Read more
End of Year Rituals
June 18, 2016Today was the last day of our third year at Mosaic. Over the summer I’ll still almost all of the kids at some point, so it doesn’t really feel like goodbye! I love this. The students at the school are people I enjoy being with and we have authentic relationships… Read more
Adult Day Of Play
June 12, 2016Background During a staff day we held in January, Branches staff & parent volunteers gathered for a facilitated workshop on Creative Problem Solving (CPS) led by Sara Smith, a former ALF Summer participant and aunt of two of our students. Sara is currently getting her Masters in Creativity and we enjoy… Read more
ALC Mosaic Report Card 2016-17
June 12, 2016Last year the students and facilitators at Branches evaluated our school culture with our first ever “report card.” We had fun making it! I wrote a blog post about that last year where you can read more about how the activity was introduced and facilitated. We continued this practice this… Read more
DC & Annapolis Trip – Year 3!
June 12, 2016Two weeks ago, @tomis and I took 11 students on a road trip to DC & Annapolis. This is the third year this trip has been offered at Mosaic, and for some students, their third year attending. However this is the first year that none of their parents came along… Read more
Off-site Opportunities!
May 3, 2016One of my favorite things to do is go on trips with kids. When I taught in public schools, I would relish the days we could go on a field trip. My first year teaching, I organized an overnight trip via bus to Williamsburg, VA with 40 kids! I love… Read more
Inward Dive
April 17, 2016I haven’t blogged much recently. I’ve been enjoying an “inward dive” the past couple months, rebuilding myself from the inside out. I’ve been releasing a lot, and creating new thought patterns for myself through meditation.. I’ve been reading quite a bit, books that are new and very different as well… Read more
Science of Music with George
February 21, 2016For four weeks, we’ve had a guest teacher, George, come to visit our school and offer a series of four classes: Intro to Chemistry, Starry Starry Night (about constellations), BOOM! Chemical Explosions, and finally, The Science of Music. This week, one of our students was ill for the last… Read more
Visioning the Future
January 31, 2016The Law Of Attraction is based on the idea that “like attracts like.” What we put out to the world is what we will receive. When we accept responsibility for what we draw into our own lives, we can feel empowered to create the life we want to live! Last week,… Read more
A Brief History Of Education
January 31, 2016This post is a follow up from our incredible experience hosting Peter Gray here in Charlotte (January 30, 2016). In his talk, he refers to a blog post he wrote called “A Brief History Of Education.” If you went to the talk, you might be curious to read a bit… Read more
On Relationships
January 24, 2016I’m finding this school year to be so much easier than the first and second years. This can be attributed to many things. I think the biggest factor involved here are relationships based in trust and love. I made a little chart to examine the shift in dynamics between people when… Read more
Changing Your Mindset, Changing Your Life
January 13, 2016I was looking for Peter Gray quotes to share as we get excited for his speaking event in Charlotte on Jan. 30th, and came across this one. I personally would replace the word “education” in this quote with “life. Which prompted me to reflect on a common parent question I… Read more
Be The Change Check In #2
December 10, 2015Last week, I shared about the Be The Change check-in’s that @charlotte holds coherence for and how I never get to attend any meetings! This initiative at school has motivated me to make lifestyle changing goals that I hope will make my carbon footprint in this world a little smaller. I… Read more
Be the Change Check-ins
December 3, 2015This blog post will cover content about menstruation. If that’s uncomfortable for you to read about, click away. … Good with this? Awesome! Because I have some cool stuff to share in this post! What is Be The Change Check-in? This is a weekly small group offering with @charlotte where members think… Read more
Rose, Bud, Thorn
November 7, 2015Every month, the facilitators at both our older and younger campuses gather for an informal meeting where we check-in with each other. The goal is help us feel connected as one campus even though we are apart and to share facilitation stories so we can support one another. Yesterday we… Read more
Regular Offerings at Mosaic – Aug/Sept 2015
September 27, 2015It’s been exciting to see the offerings that have developed in the first five weeks of school! For this blog post, I wanted to write about some the offerings I’ve been a part of at Mosaic so far. I hope to give parents or other facilitators in ALCs a taste… Read more
Tone-Setting Camping Trip
September 13, 2015One huge benefit of adding @jesslm to our ALF team here at Mosaic is all of her camping experience she brings from leading boyscout groups. Once she made the decision to quit her job and focus on developing a career with us, one of the things she jumped right into… Read more
What’s Behind Our Dreams & Goals?
September 6, 2015We’ve wrapped up our second week of school! This week we had my dear friend Mariusz & and his wife Maya come visit from Poland. Mariusz started his own preschool in Poland, Zielona Wieza, currently serving between 50-60 children ages 2-6. He is now planning to open a school for… Read more
Back to School, Year Three!
August 29, 2015It’s amazing to me that this is our third year of Mosaic. I’m in awe of all that has developed and unfolded. I take a lot of pride in everything I do, and embarking on this journey to create a school was a huge step for me. I am shy… Read more