International Day and more

Another busy week at Highland Park.  Last Sunday saw much success with Coach DeLine's first annual Fall Fitness Festival.  I stopped by at the beginning of the festival to see how it was going and now hear that by the time the afternoon ended at 5 pm, approximately 300 Scotties had partaken of the booths, the activities, and the wellness presentation.  Coach plans to make this an annual event to showcase health and wellness providers in our community, as well as a way to promote fitness for all.  Ties right in with the approximately 13 staff members we now have on board participating in late afternoon fitness class three times per week right here on campus.  Our numbers seem to keep growing and it's the one de-stresser we all  absolutely count on each week.  Keep moving!

Third grade travelled to the Paramount Theater this week to see a production of Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters.  This African tale, by John Steptoe, not only tied into the recent instruction I've observed with paired text/text evidence through fairy tales and folk tales, but also fit beautifully with our annual International Day potluck Wednesday evening.   In fact, at the potluck, third grader Gustavo took me to a world map hanging on the wall in the cafeteria, pointed out Zimbabwe, told me that this country was the setting for the tale, then proceeded to tell me that the lesson learned was "that kindness is rewarded".  Doesn't get much better than that! 
Thanks to the International Day committee for always putting together an evening where families of varying nationalities, faiths, and perspectives can come together around the foods of their heritage.  Also, many thanks to Debi Esterak for including the Lamar Scottie Singers as dinner entertainment, as well as everyone for the International Day performances and learning sessions the following day.  Check out the German polka band below from Thursday's festivities.  Mr. Smith and "Oma", our very own Alyssa Smith's father and grandmother.  Lovely.

I ended my week today on a trip to McKinney Roughs with fourth grade students (alas, my last with this grade level until spring).  The field experience, tied to their social studies and science TEKS, first provided my break-out group an opportunity to take a mile-long hike, something I personally love to do.  Our very knowledgeable guide informed us about the red bark cedar, common to areas east of Austin, and also told us about the juniper berries.  Did you know they were once used to make poultice for wounds?  We also saw a "toothache" tree (who knew!), the bark of which Native Americans used to numb their mouths when they had a...you guessed it...toothache.  Learning about the re-growth that has taken place since a fire burned 85 acres of the park in 2008 really gave us all hope as we thought of the recent Bastrop fires.  Hopefully, we can look forward to a similar "re-birth" for the hard-hit Bastrop area.

The trip ended with each group, in one of the field rooms, using microscopes to identify macro invertebrates then recording their observations on a graphic organizer and a final activity (which I only got to hear about!) involving trees and keys.  As you can tell from teacher assistant Mr. King below, it was a good learning day for all. Real-life connections help build deeper meaning for the work we do each day in school.