A Group of Friends With the Same Dream

Last week in my li'l Eagle Cove School Eco-world, it was like "Part 2"...or perhaps even more a "Yin Yang" kind of week in many ways.

It was "Earth Week Revisited" as my students had the triple crown of field trips:

1.  A trip to "paint" the Chesapeake Bay Bridge at Sandy Point State Park as part of a combined social studies-art field trip; 

2.  A trip with our 1st--3rd graders to Kensington, Maryland's Grace Episcopal Day School [GEDS] to continue our friendship which started during our original Earth Day Earth Week, where 1st--5th graders trekked up to ECS to spend the day outdoors with us on our turf;

3. Our annual 3rd grade boat trip to return our oyster spat we've been raising all year long (more on that on another day).


Like I said...it was a "Part 2" kind of week, where the parallels were plentiful...especially with our continuation of our relationship with GEDS:

--They had outdoor adventures at our school, and we had outdoor adventures at the nearby creek in Rock Creek Park and on the nature trail at their school. 

--We showed them a play with humorous, musical interludes ("Jack & the GreenStalk"), and they performed the musical comedy "The Truth About George" (about a medieval village, knights, maidens, and a vegetarian dragon).

--Both days involved a lot of neat stations, hands on activities, eco-art, outdoor picnic lunch and making new friends (although this time, we returned to some fast friends we'd made last time).

--Plus our trip to GEDS was topped off with trips to their two "Bay Rooms" where they'd compiled loads of long-term learning about the Chesapeake Bay.

An amazingly fun time!  And pretty darn neat to see a "soul mate" kind of school, who not only is similar in size, philosophy, and environmental focus on our Chesapeake Bay. 

Given the Casablanca quote I used when writing about our previous ECS/GEDS adventure, I started looking up movie quotes, thinking that "Play it again, Sam" (also from Casablanca) would be a good one for today.  However, I learned that it is actually a misquote often attributed with that movie.  So a more fitting one surfaced, coming from a much different movie; yet, a favorite all the same, and fitting indeed!  Add a lens of environmentalism and shared vision to the quote, and I think it ties extraordinarily well--especially given this sentiment of soul mates:

"I have a dream too, but it's about singing and dancing and making people happy.  It's the kind of dream that gets better the more people you share it with.  And I found a whole group of friends who have the same dream, and that makes us sort of like a family." 

~The Muppet Movie

Cheers to our dear friends at Grace Episcopal!!

Yin Yang Tree Card Image from http://www.zazzle.com/yin_yang_tree_card-137580778357570309; All other pictures from my camera