This tree stump plays a different character pretty much daily. The little girl who lives downstairs creates worlds with any stick, string, stump, bit of tree branch, or moss clump she can find. Almost every day it looks different. Today it's a tall stick with a string connecting it to a mini "tree" (a trimming from a tree we lost in the storm) and moss clumps were dug out elsewhere and stuck to the stump. She's so cute & innocent.
Another set of kids I know that are cute & innocent had some of that innocence taken away today. Just as the students were arriving this morning, we found out that one of our kindergarten teachers died overnight. She wasn't at work and after multiple attempts to reach her, the office tried an emergency contact who shared the information. It was hard to share the news at first even with all the adults in the building, due to the fact that MSA testing started right when the office found out. So throughout the first half of the day, the county crisis team of counselors came, there were mini faculty meetings in the office 5 people at a time because that's all the coverage they could round up, and then at 1 in the afternoon we all had to tell our classes. We're a big faculty, so not everyone knows everyone, but Cherry was someone everyone knew and liked because she was so different from the rest of us. She retired from NYC public schools and came down here to keep chugging. Her daughter is my age and just had a baby. So sudden and so sad. And the kids were heartbroken. It's amazing to watch the grief process at the kindergarten & 1st grade level.
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