Rewind to last weekend and you get a sense of high gear activity in the Highland Park community. Saturday night HP staff travelled to the Golliher residence for our annual holiday get-together. What a great evening for those who attended – who doesn't love a White Elephant game! Sunday saw the MAC performance of the holiday music and dance spectacle What-cracka?! While I enjoyed this student created, unique performance, I only mention it here as several current Scotties hit the stage at intermission for a dance-off (seriously, there were tons of HP’ers there!). If I’m not mistaken, the Dowd /Mendelsen trio took top honors! What a way to get kids pumped around the arts! Thanks MAC, thanks to fluency volunteers Alice Van Zant and Frances Cerbins for the company, and thanks to some top-notch high school performers to boot.
Monday afternoon Austin Film Kids did indeed roll out the red carpet in our library for their first semester film festival. We were treated to student created “shorts”, with Brian Cox giving us the ins and outs of what the kids had accomplished. Camera angles, cut-aways, special effects, directing, and producing credits were noted, as were the actual storyboards used to create the films. There were even out-takes shown with assistant Traviss Thomas being the good natured bearer of the inside joke. I hear that students will move on to more in-depth editing processes in the spring and that many a kid has movie making gear high on their holiday wish lists now. Thanks Brian for inspiring our kids in the love of story telling, for such a creative outlet for this high energy group, and for brainstorming with me the other day on where the program can grow from here.
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| Mr. Cox rolling the credits |
The year just wouldn’t be the same without Pajama Day. One of a handful of “special days” sponsored by our Student Council officers, this fun day had most students and staff all cozy and warm in our PJ’s. I saw LOTS of Scottie Dogs on LOTS of pajamas as I roamed the halls and classrooms, with teachers keeping the learning going (what better way to kick back and read than in your PJ’s?) while lounging in ultimate comfort. Check out some of the pics below. Fun!
Kinder teachers travelled to San Antonio one day this week to attend the professional development workshop led by Dr. Jean. Dr. Jean is known far and wide in early learning circles for creative, musical ways to make learning fun – takeaways for the day included teaching writing/spelling with karate chops – which we all practiced at Thursday’s staff meeting - and additional ways to teach language development through music.
Scottie Singers came out in full force on Thursday evening. Maria Satterwhite and Brion Briones led the group in their winter concert performance. I think my favorite musical number was It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) by Duke Ellington and Irving Mills. Not only were all the right notes hit, but the choreography was very well done. Special props to Marcus and Benjamin on having that swing down pat. Our fourth and fifth graders looked quite nice in their Scottie Singers black and tan; what a wonderful addition to holiday happenings on such a wet, chilly evening.
Just have to say - George Lewellyn at Lamar Middle School, his support team of staff and parents, rock! I was able to pop over to the Lamar Open House Thursday morning and caught the third group of interested parents and students in the library before the tour (heard the earlier ones were even more packed than the one I attended – some former HP parents tell me they had over 100 parents attend – woohoo!); yep, I continue to be impressed by George’s low key, “we’re going to get it done” approach to school change. And you know what? He’s doing it. George shared with me his most recent performance on the district benchmark assessments, with Lamar Middle School falling in the top 5 AISD middle schools in most tested areas (7th grade writing was ranked 3rd overall!). It takes a village and great leadership. Thanks George and team for all you are doing for our kids and our community.
