Preparing for class part 2

When first learning the curriculum I felt overwhelmed.  So much to learn in so little time.  I guess it would have been wiser to plan more than a half hour before class started, lol.

  Anyway, now I have learned all the material, how do I prepare for classes?  I look at the lesson plans, read all the ideas and my added suggestions, bring up memories, good and bad about the different activities and cross my fingers.

But is this always the best way to prepare for class?  I thought about it and decided to come from a different place.  What if I put myself in nature?  Seems like the best preparation for all of the programs, especially  for Music Makers at Home in the World.  So my darling husband and I did a 4 mile hike from Amagansett to Springs.  Our local trails society completed this all natural trail.  We just had to follow the yellow dots. It started in the farmlands of Amagansett and continued through the rolling woodlands into Springs and ended at Pussy Pond (yes with marshes).  We didn't get to the Marshes...took a wrong turn somewhere.... but we did go through the meadows and the woodlands.  At one point we stopped and had a meadow concert with the sounds of birds, bugs and rustling grass.

Audrey Sillick took us on a Nature walk at a MG Festival a few years back and when a member of group named a tree she shushed her and exclaimed that naming nature separated us from the experience.  For more on this idea, read David Abram's marvelous book, The Spell of the Sensuous. 

David has just finished his second book that I haven't cracked open yet but it is on my important books to read pile.  It is called Becoming Animal.  This sounds right up my ally.


P.S. the last picture was some sort of pod and my DH insisted they were from the movie, "The Body Snatchers".


I am ready to teach!