Etsy Metal Blog Carnival: Back to School

The topic for this month's Etsy Metal Blog Carnival is "Back to School" (you and/or your children).

My husband and I have a five year old daughter who started kindergarten last month. She is going to a Quaker school, and so far we are all loving it. Kate comes home telling me how much she loves school, and is excited about everything she's learning. This school is unique in a couple of ways. One is that they have mixed age classrooms, so they have 5-6 year old's together (kindergarten & first grade). There are two teachers, and they separate the grade levels for math and reading, but for most everything else, they are together. The kids stay in the room for two years. The other unique thing is that they integrate the Quaker values of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship into the curriculum. We figure if a Quaker education is good enough for presidents' daughters, it will be good for ours! The only downside to this school is the commute; it's about thirty minutes in traffic, but it's in the direction of my other job. We have to leave pretty early, which has been kind of a challenge for my husband and me, but not for our early-bird daughter.

When I'm not making jewelry, I have a part-time job in the dance department at Emory University. One of the great things about working at Emory is that I can take (audit) classes if I can fit them into my schedule. I've taken several dance classes since I started working there, all in modern dance. This semester they are offering Gyrokinesis movement training for the first time, so I've been trying that out. It's often referred to as yoga for dancers, and helps to mobilize the spine and strengthen the core. It feels so good if you sit most of the time, as I do. I do some yoga almost daily, but I really like Gyrokinesis because of the fluid movements, and the fact that you are moving pretty much all the time (no holding of poses). Here's a video on YouTube if you are curious what it looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH-NWfjFT-M

To see what other Etsy Metal team members have to say about this topic, follow the links below.

Evelyn Markasky http://markasky.blogspot.com
2Roses: http://www.jewelrytutorial.blogspot.com
silentgoddess: http://silentgoddess.blogspot.com
Kate Jones: http://www.katejonesdesign.blogspot.com
Abella Blue: http://www.abellablue.com/blog
LauraJaneBouton: http://laurajanebouton.blogspot.it/
Mary Anne Karren Studio: http://silverpearlmetalworks.wordpress. ... to-school/