The good they do

I so enjoyed the dedication last Sunday for the newest addition to Perry Park.  Highland Park's Girl Scout Troop 1510 saw a need for an outdoor learning area, made a very detailed plan, raised the necessary funds, coordinated the vision with their Troop Moms and Austin's Parks and Rec folks, then got to work installing the brand new Perry Park Learning Circle.  This enhancement to our adjacent park area will be a very cool place for classes to meet, for reading and writing workshops, small performances, and for the many park visitors to simply sit and enjoy nature in all its beautiful bounty.  It was a very nice event, with Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell, Friends of Perry Park's Nadene Morning, as well as HPWBANA members, PARD employees and many others in attendance.  I was honored to cut the official ribbon and say a few words to open the Learning Circle and truly, it was a great project that helped these young leaders understand the power in good works - when you just go for it.  And when you work together with your community to achieve a dream.  Confident and capable girls all!

Juliee & Sharon giving the overview

Ribbon Cutting Time!

Mrs. Hunter with Troop 1510

The Plan

The accolades were overflowing this week for a couple of our teachers and I couldn't be prouder of the recipients.  'Cause I know how hard they work and what good they do in teaching and learning.  I just heard that 5th grade Social Studies Teacher Pam Kolodziej has been nominated for the TX Council for Social Studies Elementary Teacher of the Year due to her "outstanding teaching for the advancement of social studies education".  A very well deserved honor.

Also, 4th grade Teacher Laine Leibick was recently notified that she has been selected as the 2014

Mrs. Leibick with the notification letter

Outstanding Teaching of the Humanities Award.  Per the official notification I received, "this prestigious award, presented annually by Humanities Texas, recognizes teaching excellence in humanities fields such as language arts and social studies in Texas elementary, middle, and high schools."  Woot! During the 2014-2015 school year, the official award will be presented to Mrs. Leibick, along with a $5,000 check in "recognition of achievements", as well as a $500 check  for Highland Park to use in the support of humanities programming on our campus.

Very, very proud of these ladies and all they champion in the area of Arts and Humanities on campus. 

Painting the design...

First grade teacher Ms. McLelland caught me going down the hallway this morning, telling me I just had to check out what her class was doing for the Ocean Odyssey unit of study.  Students and parent volunteers were making a variety of art projects, but the one that caught my eye (and nose!) was the use of fish to make the Ocean Odyssey t-shirt designs kids produce every year.  Students were painting real (though not live) fish with a variety of self selected designs (washing the paint off  after each design was complete and reusing only a couple of fish over and over), then transferring the design onto a white t-shirt.  The imprints of the scales were very detailed, and as Mrs. McDaniel stated to me a bit later, this was the kind of project "that those kids will remember forever".  Loved the creativity and use of realia to create art and make meaning of what they are now learning about ocean life. 

Transferring the painted design to the t-shirt

and voilà

Finally, Ms. McDaniel and I are just back from a Fling auction luncheon with some of our fifth grade girls.  Loved dining out (doesn't happen often!) at our Partner in Ed businesses Craig-O's Pizza and Berry Austin.  Always good.  Very nice girls and a fun way to wrap up our week as well.

A bit of dessert at Berry Austin. Yum!