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The last few weeks have been so busy.  Here are some of the highlights:

On Wednesday, all students celebrated International Peace Day.   We met at the BCD Peace Pole, on which “Let Peace Prevail on Earth” is written in four languages – English, French, Spanish, and Chinese. Mr. Frantz talked about peace.  Third grade and PreK had made peace pinwheels.  Back in the classroom we read Talk Peace by Sam Williams and The Peace Book by Todd Parr.  Our ideas about working and playing peacefully together get applied directly into the life of the classroom, as we continue to spend these weeks getting to know each other and talking about what kind of year we want to create together.

In that vein, the class has completed their work on developing classroom rules.  They worked hard on this and were thoughtful about the process.  From a long list of 25, they narrowed it down to three all-encompassing ones:

1.  Make good choices.

2.  Be great friends to everybody.

3.  Take care of everything around you.

Hopefully, these will cover all occasions!

We have completed our butterfly life cycle posters.  These are now on display on the bulletin boards.  The children loved the experience of drawing the various stages from life and truly did a terrific job.  Please come and take a look at them!

It was great to see so many of you at Back-to-School Night last night.  I enjoyed the opportunity to explain a bit more about the kindergarten program and to answer your questions.  This is a great class and I’m really enjoying teaching them!  And, always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Author Tyrone Jackson came to read his new book, When I Close My Eyes, to PreK and K on Thursday.  The book is geared for young children and talks about the powers of imagination.  All, kids and adults, thoroughly enjoyed his visit!  We followed up the next day with individual writings.  You can see these on the bulletin board.  Mme. Whalen arranged this visit for us.  Merci beaucoup, Madame!

We were busy outside, too!  Take a look:

We had a wonderful trip on Tuesday to the Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory, seeing over 4,00 butterflies, representing over 50 different types.  The children were terrific on the long bus ride to and from Magic Wings and definitely impressed their tour guide with their knowledge of butterflies.   A big thank you to our chaperones, Lauren Slater, Emily Bernard, and Tyler Weld.  Ms. Smith came, too – thank you!  It was a great trip!

If you ever took an art history class, you will be familiar with the experience of seeing the ‘Annunciation Triptych’ attributed to the workshop of Robert Campion (25 3/8 in. x 46 3/8 in.) and Pollack’s ‘Autumn Rhythm’ (105 in. by 207 in.) as being the same size. All the images in the class basically filled the screen and appeared to be equal. Having a chance to actually see a work of art, in the flesh, so to speak, can be a phenomenally different experience. That is one reason why the Art Dept. takes every class in Kindergarten through grade 6 on an Art trip. The 7^th Grade trip to D.C. is a combined Art and History trip, and some Arts Block classes do include a museum visit.

But, have you been to any museums lately? My focus is art museums, but the same changes are underway in many museums. This summer I had the chance to participate in the National Art Education Association’s Summervision program in Washington, D.C.  We averaged two different museum visits each day. One of the things I have been witnessing and thinking about for some time was clearly evident that week as well.

The way people in a museum look at an exhibit is changing. Now, a museum visitor first looks through the viewfinder of their phone or their blackberry or some other electronic device, and snaps a picture of what’s in front of them. Then, they can click on the code the museum provides with their smart phone, and read text or listen to audio about the exhibit. Then, they finally look at the works in front of them.

In this visual age, I support current thinking that students need to learn to be able to read images, so that they can be visually literate and discerning. In order to do that, they need to be able to describe what they see in an artwork; to discover why the work was made and how it fits in to its time, as well has being able to have that visceral response to the work.

The trips we take attempt to do all that.  The Sixth Grade went on their art trip- to Olana, the former home of Fredric Church, in Hudson, N.Y. this week. Church was, arguably, the most famous American artist in his day. There are few of his works in the house, mainly smaller oil sketches, but it is the home itself that is a special architectural treasure. While there, students sketched some portion of the elaborate exterior for later use in class. This memorable place will stay with them forever.

I encourage you to provide your child with the opportunity to visit museums and galleries. The Berkshires are packed with places to go and things to see. Your child will be drawn to things that surprise you. Have fun exploring!

This week in the library, preschoolers shared Jules Feiffer’s picture book, The Daddy Mountain. In this humorous tale, a little redheaded girl is about to do something very daring. And scary. And she shows you step-by-step exactly how she does it. She climbs the Daddy mountain. Ask your preschooler if he or she would like to go on adventure such as this…then watch out!

Preschoolers also enjoyed creating their own story this week. Using small finger puppets and stuffed animals, we developed our own collaborative story with each student contributing one small part.

We concluded with book browsing and check out. Happy Reading!

I’ve been trying to dodge the rain with the Kindergarteners as much as possible and get outside whenever we can. Recently we traveled into the big woods (i.e. Mike’s Trail) and placed a table cloth down on the forest floor. The children made predictions about what they thought would either fall or crawl onto the sheet. We left the sheet overnight and came back the next day to find lots of leaves, tree seeds, pine needles and a big, fat slug!