Sunday, April 10, 2016

Week 25 - Schole' in Practice

We are nearing the big day…our final Learning Celebration!  Our day was filled with preparations for the big performance, a special guest from Jewish Awareness Ministries, the beauty of spring and lots of excitement!  Join us as we recount our Week 25 of putting Schole' into practice…


Morning Time
We started our day with a time of prayer, sharing and reflecting on what this year has been for our students and myself.  We also reviewed all the student virtues we learned this year.  We gave thanks for all the Lord has done for us at SGCA.  I also took photographs of each of our students to mark their last day of school, as this is our last "instructional" day of the year.  Next week will be our final Learning Celebration!


Great Books
Today was an extended time of practicing and laying out all the logistics for the upcoming celebration.  The students were busy practicing for their Ancient Shadow Puppet version of Aesop's Fables - narrators working on their parts, fable tellers working on theirs, and puppeteers working on theirs!  It was all coming together on this final week of instruction.

When not required to be puppeteering or on stage narrating, the students were busy creating their signage for the completion of the puppet theater.  

Fine Arts

Our Academic Mentor was busy instructing students in how to puppeteer their shadow puppets, and work together to create each scene.  There was a main shadow puppet stage and then a side stage with hand puppets who were given the task of creating some comic relief between fables, and punctuating the moral of the fable.  The narrators were telling the fable as the puppeteers created it visually with their shadow puppets.  The students had to coordinate their telling and working of puppets, and all the timing of everything was carefully practiced, and practiced again.

When the students weren't needed for their part, I had them come in and fill out a student survey with me.  This is to be used for the end of year celebration to delight the students and share with their parents.  The survey shows the collective thoughts of our students regarding their experiences, and it will be put in a visual chart format.  We had the kids rank many aspects of their year, and then some free thought questions were asked to see if any trends or similarities were found.  We definitely had many and it will be so fun to share with the students and parents what all the kids had to say!  

Schole' Lunch
During Schole' lunch we had a very special guest, Rev. Mark Robsinson, Director of Jewish Awareness Ministries located in Angier, NC.  Mark came to share with our students about the Jewish Holiday of Purim.  The kids had a blast as he prompted them to "boo" whenever they heard the name Haman, and cheer, as well as shake their noise makers they were given, whenever they heard the name Mordecai or Esther!  He gave the Biblical recount of the story of Esther, and talked about God working behind the scenes and how this Holiday is celebrated by the Jewish people.  It was very informative and the kids all loved Mark's storytelling skills.

Schole' Playground
Today's playground game consisted of placing an eraser on top of a student's head and then having them pick a student's head to place a second eraser on, as they walked away without letting the eraser fall.  The student they picked and placed an eraser on as well, tried to tag the first student before they got to the finish line.

Math
Math started with a book reading of Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi.  

The students then did an activity related to the book.  They also placed their thumbprints on pots to be used as thank you gifts for our hard working Academic Mentors, at the final Learning Celebration!

Latin
We had a birthday this week during Latin for one of the girls.  The kids were on their last chapter of Song School 2 Latin - they made it!  What a terrific Latin program for younger students!  They all really enjoyed the series "My Pet Monkey 2" in the video each week.  If you haven't checked this out for Latin, you should!  

Science - Nature Study

We started our day in science with our picture of the day (today was a red crab migration in Australia).  It is fun to see what the kids see, as they look at these each week.  Always a favorite activity for the kids in science!  

We hit the nature trail to have the students collect whatever items in nature they found along the way that they would want to put into their nature windows they would be making upon their return.  The only rule was it had to be non-living (like a stick or leaf) or have fallen on it's own and died -it couldn't be picked from something living.  :) 

Upon returning with their treasures, the kids then were given two square pieces of wax paper, various colored crayon shavings, and told to arrange the items however they wanted to, using the crayon shavings as an accent to their design.  Once their design was complete, they took it to our room set up for ironing them so they would seal together.  They completed their design by cutting loose edges and using colored tape around the edges to frame it.  They came out very beautiful!  
It's hard to believe we are done with classes, officially.  Next week will be a day of rehearsal for the shadow puppet theater performance that evening.  The kids will also do a science "blow out" Wonderful Wednesday style (you know I couldn't resist), before we part ways to return for the evening performance!  It should be a very fun and crazy day!  So stay tuned….










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