Spontaneous Delight

For the past year I've been taking turns teaching "Joy School" with three other moms who live within a few blocks of us. The idea behind Joy School is not to focus on teaching kids letters, numbers or other pre-K skills but to teach them principles that will help them have joy and be happy throughout their lives. In some ways it's a parenting class because a lot of the principles are things that kids have inherently- a natural curiousity, a desire to try new things- that parents maybe don't know how to direct appropriately so their kids lose it. Other things, like the joy of the earth, the joy of order, sharing, service, etc. are things that we learn about.

I really love the curriculum and I feel like it's given me so many great tools as a parent (let's just say I still have a lot to learn) but the other day we did a class called 'Spontaneous Delight'. It still makes me giggle to think of the name. Usually I'm kind of anxious about helping the kids to learn some kind of principle, but the goal for this class was just to have fun together, and to learn that just as it's important to be still and quiet something, sometimes it's also really good to giggle and laugh together. It was the funnest time I've ever had teaching a class. We just did lots of silly things (like popping popcorn without the lid on and painting with our feet which freaked them out initially before we had lots of fun with that) and had a ball. I wish that there were more things about how to have spontaneous delight... I think that life would be a lot less stressful. It's helped me to have more fun with my kids though, which has definitely been amazing. We're still trying to figure out what to do for preschool next year- our group will all be off in other places. I'm sure whatever it is won't be quite as fun as Joy School ;)