Tying it all together

This was a week where students had fun while reinforcing their lessons of fairness and acceptance.  Cari Land put together another meaningful No Place for Hate Week, with dress reflecting the daily message.  Days included "Way Back Wednesday" and "Thankful Thursday", as seen in the pics.  Most importantly, all were tied to dressing up and taking action every day. Let's keep lessons learned going Scotties!

Staff also did some further work  related to the Any Given Child creative classroom initiative.  Sally Hunter, Kalene Guenther and I traveled over to Maplewood to discuss Year III planning with our McCallum Vertical Team elementary campuses, MindPop, and Greg Goodman of AISD Fine Arts Department.  Though this was a tentative campus planning session, we are excited about continuing our meaningful connections with current arts partners, continuing to expand drama based instructional proficiency for our teachers, continuing to build community through out of school activities, and, looking ahead, increasing our capacity in media and visual arts tools and strategies.  It's about keeping what we have and moving forward.

Tying into this planning session, nine HP teachers - a combination of grade level, special area, and special education  - ended their week at UT's Winship Building for a full day DBI professional development.  Katie Dawson, Lara Dossett, and Sarah Coleman of the Drama for Schools department facilitated the day and we came away with some concrete lesson planning accomplished.  Much of the morning focused on a lesson around The Paper Bag Princess, with understanding and connections made through such strategies as artifact, narrative pantomime, machine (which was a very cool teacher-created dragon as seen below), scene work, and hot seat.  Throughout, teachers  explored engaging ways for students to create, analyze, synthesize, and translate/transfer information before, during, and after a lesson.  In the afternoon's reflection, I was struck by several things in particular.  One, that teachers should purposefully plan those emotional and physical moments in a lesson - high and low moments and when it is most appropriate to insert them.  Second, transitions between the varied activities can be powerful teaching tools by themselves.  Those transitional moments can be used for student reflection on character motivation, synthesis of information before moving to the next activity, and much more.  And finally, how much of what we discussed during the day (all week in fact) connected to a lecture I attended by Dr. Sonia Nieto Wednesday evening.  This AISD Educator Quality lecture, Honoring The Lives of All Students:  Identity, Culture, and Language, centered around several points (valuing language, valuing culture, honoring families, service learning, and more), with a common thread throughout - the power of high quality teacher professional development.  I left Friday's training thinking we accomplished this goal. Teachers built greater understanding of the why behind the what, were provided with a common vocabulary to share with all stakeholders, and most importantly, left with some concrete tools to use in their classrooms come Monday.  A good end to a good week.

A living dragon in action!

Honor and Celebrate

Owl Projects in Mr. Gay's Class

Making Predictions

Students are officially back at it!  Work began before break is now ready for display and post-break work is in evidence as well.  Mrs. Pappert's second graders have been learning about weather and clouds, while across the hall, Mr. Gay's students displayed their annual Owl Research Projects with another Process & Product Display (a unit of study completed by all second grade).  Kinder is going strong, with our youngest students participating in everything from writing workshop in Mrs. Ryan's class to beginning their day with making predictions about their decodable readers in Ms. Farmer's classroom (and consistent use of our Innovation Stations as a teaching tool - love that!)

 

"Misplaced Nose Bikini Mommy" by Gustavo

Fourth grade students are showcasing their work as well with some very interesting student created art in Mrs. Hunter's Language Arts classes.  She tells me students researched art forms, Renaissance period through the late 1800's and beyond, in connection with their novel The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler; they also will use their research as an intro to their upcoming Shakespearean unit of study.  All well done, including  Andres' "granite" sculpture modeled after a family friend's real-life piece and Gustavo's piece inspired by da Vinci's Mona Lisa... and his mom.  When asked, Gustavo readily told me he used the Italian art style of "chiaroscuro, which uses contrasts between light and dark".  Something I didn't know.  Impressive.

Of course, this week there were many lessons and activities connected to the upcoming Martin Luther King holiday, as well as introductory lessons connected to February's Black History Month.  Our language arts units of study, particularly in grades 2-5, explore many themes connected to African American experiences, art classes are using the Faith Ringgold book Tar Beach to "create...mixed media artwork similar to the book's illustrations", and much more.  Our children are learning valuable life lessons on the sacrifices, courage, and contributions of African American people in our society and the struggles they experienced by speaking their truth.  Not an easy road by any means, but a necessary one in order to affect real, good, and needed change.  This week was specifically dedicated to Dr. King's life and a celebration of who he was and what he stood for...and still symbolizes today.  Some of these celebrations are detailed below.

Mrs. Ryan's K students learned a song and practiced their piece for me one day, a piece entitled "Stand Up for Martin Luther King".  And they did.






Second graders used the arts integration strategy DAR (describe, analyze, and relate) with a poster depicting Dr. King and the expansive crowd at his I Have a Dream speech.  They will carry what they learn into the next few weeks' research on Black inventors and other prominent African Americans in the upcoming Biography Unit.




Mrs. Leibick's LA students discussed the life story of Galileo and the immense personal sacrifice he made - house arrest in fact - for defending the Copernicus Theory.  Students did a pair share of their own personal injustice experiences, tying it all into a discussion of Dr. King.  Mrs. Leibick tells me students will eventually "discuss 'Speaking Truth to Power' and what happens when people stand up for an unpopular view or challenge the accepted thinking of their society.  Students are making portrait reports on 16 different individuals, including Dr. King, Rosa Parks, Marian Anderson, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela...on individuals throughout history who challenged the views of their times".  And the impact that their life and work still has today.

And finally, I listened in as Mrs. Davis was sharing the picture book My Big Brother Martin, written by his sister Christine King Farris.  These first grader's learned about the childhood of Dr. King, his intelligence and aptitude in school, and his watershed moment where he and his siblings were no longer allowed to play with their white friends because of the color of their skin.  And the statement he made to his mother, "Mother Dear, one day I'm going to turn the world upside down".  And he did.   When asked by Mrs. Davis if Dr. King is known today for his violent ways, Morgan very simply said, "He fought with his words".  And so he did.  One very good reason to continue honoring and celebrating the life and work of this very important man.

Dr. Martin Luther King celebrated by Mrs. Davis' artists

A new year

Flu season has officially arrived around HP with several students, staff, and parents feelin' a bit under the weather.  I hear there are a variety of ailments out there, including the ongoing battle with allergies, so we're trying to disinfect, encourage folks to stay home if they are sick, and keeping our fingers crossed that come Monday everyone is on the mend.

In and around all of this, fifth grade hosted Dan Lester, UT Astronomy professor, for an informative presentation on our solar system.  He seemed to have much energy and enthusiasm and Mrs. Matetich tells me he incorporated drama based instructional strategies into his presentation, all of which were just what the doctor ordered our first week back.  Thanks Dr. Lester.

The Edge of Peace

We are gearing up for our second semester community arts outing next month.  All fourth and fifth grade parents are invited to bring their children to a UT College of Fine Arts performance of The Edge of Peace, on an upcoming date in February at the B. Iden Payne Theatre.  Per the Fine Arts website overview, "Buddy, the younger brother of a soldier declared missing in action, refuses to believe what appears inevitable. Through the visual poetry of sign language, Tuc, the local deaf postman, leads patrons through the touching story of a small community struggling to make sense of a world at war.  The Edge of Peace, the final play in Suzan Zeder’s acclaimed trilogy, is produced in partnership with Seattle Children’s Theatre (SCT). SCT Artistic Director Linda Hartzell describes Zeder’s masterpiece as “a drama, mystery and adventure rolled into one. Audiences will fall in love with these characters and their stories. The play really demonstrates the interdependence of community members during times of crisis.”

In speaking with Katie Dawson of UT's Drama for Schools, the playwright recommends that fourth grade be the minimum grade level for attendance, though all parents should check out the information if interested; fourth and fifth grade teachers are additionally tying aspects of play themes to their language arts and social studies instruction in several of their classes.  Our HP date and time, ordering information, and a play synopsis will be coming your way in our Informer, School Messenger, and through language arts teachers at fourth and fifth grade in the next few days; once again, there will be a special Scottie ordering link and this time, we will have seats reserved for us in one section.  I plan to attend along with teachers to enjoy the performance with families.  Hope to see you there as it will be a wonderful opportunity to further our connections to what is happening in the classroom in a unique, authentic, and artistic way.

The McCallum Vertical Team hosted a very informative Principal PTA Roundtable today at Lamar Middle School. PTA representatives from campuses were on hand with principals, hearing both Lamar Middle School principal George Llewellyn and Kealing Middle School principal Robin Lowe present timely information about their programming.  In addition to future plans for both schools.  Lamar's Fine Arts Academy keeps gaining strength as everyone in this area knows, along with their core academics; Kealing's plans, which I had not heard about before, include blended learning and problem based learning opportunities and more for their comprehensive students.  It is great that our families have so many choices within our AISD and MAC VT and I continue to be impressed by the quality principals we have at our feeder middle schools.  George and Robin - you rock!

I love the If I Lived in a Snow Globe writing displays I saw outside Mrs. Absher's class this week.  She tells me, "We started with some winter themed mini-lessons on identifying and comparing similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia, and adjectives.  We discussed their importance:  they make our writing more interesting and fun!  We then brainstormed our own examples of each in our writer's notebooks before creating our own original stories about life in a snow globe."  Great job and no pun intended, but living in a Snow Globe could be pretty cool!
 

Finally, just have to share some of the New Years Resolutions just completed by Mrs. Golliher's students.  Not only did they and their teacher set some darn good personal goals for 2013, but they also made predictions on things they may be doing...or wish they were doing.  Some of those are high on my list as well.  Time to get in gear and make it the best year yet!

We're Baaaccckkk.....

Quick pic of Cathy McHorse walking her second grade FPS students back to class today.  It's great to be back in school.  Ahhhh....