Next Step Adventure :: mindful, creative, fun approaches to help people and organizations reach the next level
Category: Teach & Facilitate
With multiple talents and skillsets, the Next Step team collaborates with schools and organizations to help kids and grownups get excited about learning new stuff.
Whether it’s a special yoga class for a targeted population, a workshop at a conference, or an ongoing series of classes, our team confidently steps into the seat of the teacher and facilitator. We start our planning with insight into where the group begins.
To teach is to bring a group along in knowledge or skill. To facilitate is to make something easy. We teach so that learning comes easy, and we make it exciting and satisfying for our learners.
We are back in school, but we can still grow delicious food.
Waukee Science Lessons – This district-approved science curriculum features Farm to School lessons for every K-5 classroom. Grade level book lists are also included!
Gardening with Kids Lessons – These standards-aligned K-5 lessons walk groups through planning, planting, maintaining, harvesting, and celebrating gardens. Lessons for every season, indoors and out. Great for new groups or wonderful ideas for experienced groups!
Mindfulness & Movement Cards – Short breathing and calming activities are perfect for transitions. Art and outdoor activities build teams and connection. Perfect for all classrooms!
Scientists need data. People can collect data. With a little piece of technology in our pockets, we can easily and efficiently transport that data to scientists around the world. Tada – we can all be citizen scientists!
“Getting ready for my first garden coaching gig since the pandemic.” That’s how I started this post back in March!
Then this happened…
… and this.
My daughter and her partner got married the end of June in a “fast track” wedding.
My older granddaughter started first grade today, and I’m all ready to start taking care of my 5-month-old granddaughter this Wednesday.
I’ve been really busy in my own garden, turning the front lawn into a Wild and Crazy Garden.
And now that we’re heading into another school year, I’m bringing on some new talent and some new energy. I’m recommitting to Next Step Adventure. Where will it lead? Well, that’s the adventure. Hope you’ll join us.
What comes to mind when you hear the word “breath?” Do you have a memory of getting the wind knocked out of you when you did a belly flop in the pool? Or holding your breath when you were scared? Do you hear the words “I can’t breathe” that have become a mantra of the Black Lives Matter movement?
The conversation
Last night Shakti Yoga students gathered at Gateway Market for a conversation about breath. There were 11 of us around the table. I started off by asking everyone to write down what they think of when they hear the word “breath.” The answers were diverse, but most common was “life.”
Sandy Gustafson reported on what she’s learned during the months since we decided on the topic. Here are links to some of the resources she shared with us last night.
Andrew Huberman, a Stanford professor, offers a number of resources on how to breathe better, including this YouTube episode.
Keep your mouth shut
When Joseph Schneider told me I breathe through my mouth a lot, I was horrified! And in denial. But then I paid closer attention to my breathing while I practiced yoga. I had to admit that yes, I was breathing through my mouth. A lot. Then he loaned me this book, with a sticky note marking the chapter on mouth breathing.
I swear reading this chapter kept me awake for two nights, and sent me in search of medical tape to keep my mouth closed when I sleep. Keeping your mouth closed can help with snoring and sleep apnea! Who knew?
Something we take for granted, do from the moment we’re born to the moment we die, is way more complicated than I ever knew.
There’s always more
I tend to think of things like breath in broad strokes. Brette Scott offers a monthly “Energy Tuneup” at Shakti that focuses mostly on the breath. It’s really quite interesting and the sessions I’ve attended definitely shifted my energy.
This photo reminds me of the yoga pose Tadasana, or Mountain Pose. It can be rigid and stiff, or there can be a lot going on inside, including deep, controlled breathing.
Lisa Acheson shared a lightbulb moment when she learned she needed to soften her very focused breath. Working on it too hard had become detrimental to her body. Just like anything, finding the middle is a lifelong project. Breathing deep, softening, moderating, relaxing–all practices for life.
I came to a deeper understanding that the subject of breath is broad, but also particular, and integral to everyone’s life. Well, duh.
These conversations always remind me that there’s still so much to learn, and I can still improve my life and health even as I age. It’s not just good for our bodies but also our brains to learn and think about stuff in different ways.
Using my breath to come back to my body and link it up to my mind is an important part of my mindfulness practice.
We are often asked, “How do we bring Farm to School teaching into our classrooms?” There are barriers. Time is short. Teachers are stretched. There is no “free time” in the day to add something extra.
Fortunately, Farm to School is not an extra. There are countless ways to integrate it into the existing framework. We know student learning increases when activities are hands-on, engaging, and meaningful. Farm to School activities do this.
Working with Waukee Community School District, we developed science lessons that meet the curriculum goals of the Iowa Academic Standards through Farm to School activities. Each grade level folder contains lessons and supplemental materials including:
Hands-on science lessons
Instructions for growing food in the classroom
Lessons for academic learning in the garden
Book lists
Cross-curricular connections
Taste-testing guidelines
All lessons are aligned to Next Generation Science Standards, as well as the Waukee School District’s progress report statements. Material lists, learning goals, actions steps, reflection questions, hand-outs, and seasonal recommendations are included.
We invite you to access the materials, try them out in your classroom, and let us know what you think. What worked well for you? What suggestions do you have?
I heard grumbling on the short walk to the restored prairie.
“Why do we have to do this?”
“I don’t like to draw.”
“Plants are boring.”
I did not respond but wondered if the prairie and I could win them over.
The setting was the lovely Twin Ponds Nature Center near Ionia, Iowa. Twenty Girl Scouts 9-12 years old were camping for the weekend. I had been asked to lead an aftrenoon nature study of prairie plants and their changes through the seasons.
It was the after-lunch slump, 90 degrees, and humid. My hopes were not high. Yet I find tallgrass prairie fascinating, so I kept walking.
I encouraged the girls to sit in the shade on grass next to the towering plants. For the next 10 minutes, we talked prairie plants. They formed cups with their hands to mimic cup plant leaves. They used their hands to estimate the depth of big bluestem roots. (All guesses were all too short; big blue roots can be 10 feet deep!) They gathered around cup flowers and examined the pollen. They noticed a few cone flowers that had already lost their petals. Even though it was hot and after lunch, the prairie captivated the girls’ attention.
The conversation shifted to seasonal changes over time. The girls spread out to sketch various flowers and predictions of their winter changes. It was not breaktime for me, though.
“Miss Sara, look at this flower!”
“I found a cool bug!”
“Until I started drawing, I didn’t notice that the petals have two shades of yellow.”
“What do you think these berries are?”
“Noooo, I don’t want to be done!”
These girls were filled with wonder as they observed restored prairies. Despite the heat, they asked engaging questions as they made observations. To my surprise, the biggest grumblers at the start became the biggest defenders of the prairie.
…since I’ve dug deep into my experience in youth development. Being an educator is hard these days; I think it always has been. Kids, parents, counselors, administrators, teachers face criticism every day. I was excited to share some time with a group of educators working to prepare young people for life.
I have a lot to draw on from my years in 4-H Youth Development. The organization has a long history of involving youth as partners. Older kids help younger ones with their projects, lead group meetings, and finally grow up and volunteer to lead the 4-H groups of their children. It’s seamless; it’s expected and it works.
The Civil Rights movement of the mid-1960s was the impetus for extending 4-H to families of color in the northern states. It required the Land Grant System, created by Abraham Lincoln to extend 4-H to kids in cities and small towns, and the USDA provided funding for staff to do the work. That’s where I came in.
At ISU Extension I worked with kids who weren’t from traditional 4-H audiences. They didn’t think it was for them, and it wasn’t. There was a separate 4-H organization for Black kids in the south, established around the 1890 Land Grant Colleges, but not in Iowa. Extending Ithe 4-H program to those kids was hard because of its long history of just being for farm kids. Indeed, there’s still a belief among many that 4-H isjust for farm kids. In the 1970s our tee shirts said, “4-H ain’t all cows and cooking.” But affirmative action didn’t last even a generation. By 1989, the only way to grow programs was through special funding.
So I started writing grants, negotiating contracts and agreements with other organizations. We did the hard work of collaborating with schools and other organizations. Cyndy was a big part of that work, as she was developing the SUCCESS program in Des Moines Schools then.
Through it all we wove the strands of positive youth development theory, and best practice. Our teams worked hard to involve our audiences in making the decisions that shaped the programs. We developed weekly family nights where we taught the kids cooking and child care skills so they could watch their younger brothers and sisters while their parents learned parenting skills.
We put experiential education to the test, for ourselves. Learning by creating new ways of reaching kids and their parents. Finding out what worked and what didn’t.
So, I drew on that experience to plan my workshop at Partnerships in Motion. I asked the teachers and school administrators and counselors to envision their students as the subjects, the actors in the drama of their education, rather than the recipients. I shared H. Stephen Glenn’s “Mistaken Goals” with them. And melded those mistaken goals with the Circle of Courage from Reclaiming Youth at Risk—Belonging, Mastery, Independence, and Generosity.
Then we brainstormed how they can satisfy all those needs so kids don’t have to work for mistaken goals. We talked about developing systems that keep kids involved in the peer-to-peer and mentoring work they do, conversations and lessons they’ve implemented over the last five years. In the long term, this kind of work increases resilience of young people, making them resistant to bullying and violence.
Being an educator is hard these days; it was probably always hard. But change happens so fast, and everyone from parents to legislatures attack the teaching profession every day. I was really excited to be able to share some time with a group of educators who are working to prepare young people for life.
