Journeys School Earns Accreditation

Thanks to all families, faculty, staff, board members, and the extended community who have supported the school over the last six years. Attached is an article from the Jackson Hole News & Guide on May 23rd covering the important story of Journeys School becoming the first independent school in the state of Wyoming to receive accreditation from the Pacific Northwest Association of Independent Schools.

Journeys School THANKS all those Girls and Guys!

A big round of applause for all the parents and friends who attended the Guy’s Poker Night and Girl’s Night Out last week to support the Journeys School Annual Fund!

A dozen men, both Journeys School parents and friends, participated in a fun-filled night. Enormous thanks to Tony Labbe and the Bunnery Restaurant who made this poker party possible! He provided all the necessities to make the atmosphere authentic! Maho Hakoshima, an exceptional caterer, provided delicious chili, parmesan popcorn, chicken satay and more! If you missed out on this night, there is talk of another Poker Night this coming fall complete with lessons so all can join the fun!

Over 60 women - parents, faculty, and friends - enjoyed an evening of wine, hors d’oeuvres, scrumptious Nikai sushi and great conversation! Special thanks to the hosts Katie Pierce, Kathy Coosaia and Cathy Kehr for organizing this fabulous evening with their vision, talent and incredible generosity shining throughout the evening! There will certainly be more opportunities to hang out with the “girls” next year!

Journeys School Annual Fund Progress – Help us Meet our Goal by May 31st!

Thanks to all those parents, faculty and friends who have made a gift the Annual Fund! We are so grateful for your generosity which makes Journeys School an exceptional place for learning. As of May 25, 2007:

Annual Fund Goal: $350,000.00
Funds raised: $328,284.00
Parent Participation: 51%
Faculty Participation 73%

Young Philanthropists - Journeys School Students Make Charitable Gifts to Journeys School and Teton Science Schools

Heather Marks, Director of Advancement, recently received three remarkable charitable gifts. One gift arrived in a makeshift envelope that was held together with scotch tape, and staples and was labeled in pencil: Donation to the Capital Campaign. The envelope was from a 1st grade student at Journeys School and contained $1.01 in change. Another cash gift of $40.00 to Annual Fund arrived via mail and contained a neatly typed letter from two Journeys School students (3rd and 5th grade) which explained their motivations for giving: “We love attending Journeys School…Thank you for all the hard work in making the school as amazing as it is. The teachers are the best ever. One of our favorite parts of the school is how the students are split up into their ability level and not just grade. We hope the money is useful.” Finally, a manila envelope containing $34.00 in cash, proceeds from a muffin sale put on by two Journeys School 5th graders, went to support the Journeys School Annual Fund. These students in our school exemplify the joy of giving, the power of philanthropy and will definitely have a transforming impact on our school and community.

Ways of Giving to Journeys School – Gift of Stock or Securities

In addition to making a gift to Journeys School with a check or credit card, you may also make a gift of stock or securities. Please contact Heather Marks at heather.marks@tetonscience.org or 307-733-1327 ext. 1111 for details and instructions or to notify us of your plans to make a gift of stock.

Summer Annual Fundraising Auction – Organizational Meeting Friday, June 1st 8:30-9:30 am

Teton Science Schools’ 30th Annual Fundraising Auction on Saturday, August 25th will directly benefit Journeys School by raising money for the Annual Fund. We are looking for a group of dedicated parents who have ideas to share and energy to give to the planning process for this important fundraising event. Please attend a meeting on Friday, June 1st from 8:30 – 9:30 am in the Welcome Center to discuss volunteer opportunities, featured auction items, sponsorships, and logistics. Parent time, expertise and enthusiasm will ensure that this event will be a success! We graciously accept auction donations all year. Please contact Laurel Wyckoff at laurel.wyckoff@tetonscience.org or 307-733-1313 ext. 1313 for details.

Summer Youth, Adult and Family Learning Adventures at Teton Science Schools

Explore the Greater Yellowstone Geo-ecosystem on foot, in a canoe or kayak, with a Global Positioning System or with paintbrushes! Gain new skills in leadership, art, language arts, science and the outdoors! Meet curious people with similar interests and diverse experiences! Teton Science Schools have a fantastic set of summer learning adventures for everyone in the family. Courses range in length from one day to one week in both residential and non-residential settings. Please follow these links to 2007 Summer programs: Family Day Programs, Family Weeklong Programs, High School & Middle School programs, and Teton Junior Science School (for students in grades 1-6). Or visit our website www.tetonscience.org/education.shtml for program and registration details. Now is the time to register for a great summer learning adventure with Teton Science Schools!

Graduation and Community Celebration

Journeys School's graduation ceremony will take place 5:30 - 6:30 pm on campus on June 13th. The traditional end-of-school-year potluck celebration will occur following the ceremony, 6:30 - 7:30 pm. The potluck schedule is listed below, and please bring a serving for 8-10 people. If you have more than one child at Journeys School, please select your dish based on the youngest child.

PreK - side dish or salad

K-2 - main dish

3-5 - main dish

MS - dessert

US - side dish or salad

Award Winning Poets

Journeys upper school students and brothers Patrick and Gordon Finnegan have respectively won first and second place in Teton County Library’s Random Acts of Poetry contest, or R.A.P for valley school students. Journeys School eighth grade student Emily Boney won the middle school R.A.P. competition with her poem “Raven Ballet.” Patrick’s winning poem is titled “Spring at Last” and Gordon’s is called “Anticipation of Hot Summer Days.” The young men wrote the poems while studying and writing poetry in their upper school English class. One can see the students reciting their poems online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74alURMRLNw, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys2uQ3KcbMo, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-6FSrZtvNo. The library sponsored the contest throughout the month of May, national poetry month, as a means for exciting teens about poetry and for publicizing the visit and presentation of former poet laureate Billy Collins on June 4. We congratulate the young poets and thank the library for sponsoring this event.

June Community Lunch Menu

June 1st:

Fish Sticks: Seasoned & lightly Fried Fresh Halibut

With Tarragon Tartar Sauce.

Confetti Cole Slaw & Macaroni & Cheese

Fruit & Dessert

June 8th:

Farfalle Pasta with Garden Vegetables & Parmesan Cheese

Roasted Vegetable & Goat Cheese Wraps

Tomato-Basil Salad

Fruit & Dessert

June 15th:

Last day of School!!

Pizza

Sheet Cake

Lemonade

After School Program Schedule

Please note that there will not be programming the last week of school, June 11th through the 15th. Thank you.

Tuesday, May 29th: Swimming @ the Rec. Center

Wednesday, May 30th: Outdoor Play @ Miller Park *** Note that this activity was scheduled for Thursday.

Thursday, May 31st: Outdoor Art Project on Campus

Monday, June 4th: Hiking up High School Butte

Tuesday, June 5th: Swimming @ the Rec. Center

Wednesday, June 6th: Last Day of After School!

Treasure Hunt & a Special Surprise!

Thursday, June 7th: No after school due to K-2 Journey

Pre-Kindergarten

Announcements

Thank You

Thank you to Kathy and Peter Kline for hosting a journey to Warbirds in Driggs, Idaho. It was a wonderful outing full of hands on experience and excitement!

Pre-K Curriculum Night
Bring your children and come join us for our last Curriculum Night this Thursday May 31st from 5:30pm to 6:30pm. It will be a celebration of our 2006-2007 school year! Our evening will begin with a slide show in the Education Center exhibiting the works and experiences of your children. We will then take time to present portfolios to students moving on to Kindergarten. The evening with conclude with refreshments in the Pre-K play yard. We hope to see you there!

Reminder:
Please return the envelopes to Erin no later then Wednesday! If you are clueless as to what this means, please contact Erin 733-1327 ext. 1104 or email erin.smith@journeysschool.org Thank you for your support, secrecy, and energy put forth to make this possible!

End of the Year Festivities!
Field Day and Picnic in the Honigman’s Backyard
T/TH and 5-day students will finish off the year with a journey to Ellison’s house for a picnic and Olympic Games. Directions are posted on the sign-in table along with more details of the day.

Capstone Journey to Jenny Lake
At the end of each graduating year at Journeys School, students who are moving onto a new space with new teachers engage in a Capstone Journey. It is a special journey for students, teachers, and family to gather and celebrate their growth through the year.

This year, Pre-K Capstone Students (students who are moving onto kindergarten) are planning to visit Jenny Lake for a day of celebration and exploration on the last day of school, Friday, June 15th. Click here for more details.

Dancer’s Workshop
For the next three Tuesdays all Tuesday/Thursday students will be participating in Dancer’s Workshop. It will be an excellent way to get out some summer energy, work on gross motor, listening and memory skills.

Greenhouse Art Project
For the next three Tuesdays while half the class is participating in Dancer’s Workshop our Capstone students will be working with Sydney on a tile mosaic piece to decorate our new greenhouse!

Journeys this Week:
Tuesday: Dancer’s Workshop 10-11:45am with the Tuesday/Thursday group
Wednesday: Enclosure Rock Gym 9:30-11:45am with Estella, Gabriel, Henry M., Jake, Kaylin, Kirsten, Lucy, Whitney, Wilson, and Zander. (*** We are still looking for three more parent volunteers for our June 6th journey to the rock gym. Please let Anna know if you are interested.)
Friday: Andrea Broyle’s Farm (to view the foal born only a couple of weeks ago) 9:15- 10:20am. Jeanne Ball will join us to help the students write stories about the baby horse. All students will participate.

Curricular Updates
The Peter Pan Show
How do you make curriculum around the interests of children? We develop curriculum for our students by observing their interests in the classroom and then by supporting and scaffolding those interests by challenging children in their zone of proximal development (Vygotsky). The other morning, four “lost boys” were running around the classroom and engaged in a pretend sword fight. Instead of asking them to stop this play and make a new choice they were supported by a teacher to explore it further. These students were redirected to create a play of Peter Pan. They cleared the block area to make a stage and gathered an audience to watch them perform. It didn’t take long for the audience to become additional cast members. We are continuing to practice our Peter Pan show with an increased number of cast members. Children are choosing their own characters and making suggestions about how to make our show better. Students are collaborating to create a screen play and working together to act it out. Already, these explorations have provided opportunities for gross motor and fine motor, and memory development as well as incorporated pre-literacy skills. Students involved in the play are dictating the screen play and listening to different renditions of the story Peter Pan. We are all eager to continue this exploration with the children and see how it evolves.

Announcements

Thank you
• To Anne Ladd for bringing in the great story of 2 Bhutanese children to go with our prayer flag activity we did last week.
• To Mikey Bird for ‘R.A.P’ ing our class! (It was a Random Act of Poetry!)
• To Libby Hall for bringing in watermelon for snack!
• To Annie Fenn for making our bathrooms sparkling clean.
• To Chase Tessler and Avery Holdsworth for generously donating books to our class.

K-2 hits the stage, again!
Parents, be sure to mark your calendars for the upcoming K-2 performance of Lewis and Clark: A Journey West, premiering Tuesday, June 12th at 1:30 here at school. There will be an encore performance the next day for the rest of the school. Stay tuned for more details!

Singing Out
We are excited to announce that pARTners has generously included Journeys school in their grant application process this year, and the K-2 classroom has been awarded a grant for the 2007-2008 school year. The grant will bring professional musicians/songwriters into our classroom once each trimester to facilitate the students writing songs that reflect their thematic learning. This is the first year that pARTners has awarded grants outside of the school district and we are grateful for the opportunity to participate in this wonderful collaboration between local artists and students. If you know anyone who is involved in this local non-profit, please thank them for including us. Stay tuned for more information next fall!

Literature Celebration
Our final literature celebration of the year is on Thursday, May 31st from 9:30-10:30. Please come and support your child as they share poems, stories, and skits!!!

Wolf and Lewis and Clark Presentations
Kevin Taylor is coming to our class on Friday, June 1st for a wolf presentation. Thanks to Lia Turiano for making this possible by winning the wolf naming contest with the name Lobo.
Kevin is also coming on June 4th to do a special Lewis and Clark presentation.

Reminders
Children should arrive to school after 8:00! Teachers are usually in meetings and are not available to supervise your child before then.

The last day of after school will be on June 7th. There will not be after school during the last week of school. Thank you for your support.

Lines have gone home in folders for the Lewis and Clark skit. Please encourage your child to practice their lines as the June 12th performance is coming up quickly!!!

Children should have proper clothing at school at all times. We realize they are excited to wear shorts. However, given the unpredictable weather this time of year, it is important that children have pants, sweatshirts, and coats with them each day.

Curricular Updates
Bald Eagles Math Group with Betsy
The Bald Eagles recently concluded a very popular unit on geometry. Students explored polygons, 3-D shapes, and symmetry in this very hands-on unit. Last week, we shifted our focus back to money by introducing dollars. Students began to recognize how many quarters, dimes and or pennies make up one dollar. Students also explored place value through a trading chips game and began to differentiate between the ones, tens and hundreds place. Soon we will delve into basic fractions and create more number stories. Please continue to work on basic addition facts with your child at home!

Mountain Goat Reading and Writing Workshop

with Jean and Shannon
The Mountain Goat Literacy Group recently completed a wonderful poetry project. The students listened to the following poem:

Mountains have a dreamy way
Of folding up a noisy day
In quiet covers, cool and gray.

By Leigh Buckner Hanes

Students then created a piece of art that reflected this poem. Finally, they wrote descriptions of their own pieces of artwork.
This was a process that encouraged descriptive writing and use of details. They were able to fully immerse in a creative process using visual, listening and writing skills. Here are the results!

The golden moon
like balls falling from the sky.
The red sky darkens
by the light of the moon.

By Lia Silberberg

I see big mountains
and curly sky.
There are a lot of trees
and some are as old
as the mountains.

By Roney de la Cruz-Morillon

There are mountains.
The eagles fly around and around
playing a game of tag.
The eagles dive down for a drink
of water.

By Sebastian Rodriguez-Salas

The trees are old.
They are as old as a grandmother.
I like to sail on the blue,
blue water.

By Hans Wakeman

The mountains
are older than fathers.
The fathers are older than trees.
Purple and orange are mountains, too.

By Gabe Yazzolino

Gender Differentiation
Shannon, Bari, and Julie attended the Gender Differentiation workshop on campus last Friday and Saturday. They are looking forward to sharing some interesting knowledge about the ways boys and girls are ‘wired’ and how it affects all aspects of learning at school.

Announcements

Portfolio Night
Grades 3-5 Portfolio Night will take place this Thursday, May 31, from 5:00-6:00 p.m. Parents, family members and friends are invited to view student portfolios, hear mini-presentations and celebrate a year of learning in Grades 3-5. Students are expected to stay with their portfolios from 5:00-6:00 p.m. Please contact your child’s advisor if you and your child are unable to attend. Please plan to join us for this very enjoyable event!

Salish Sea Expeditions Capstone Journey Chaperone Meeting
Capstone Journey chaperones, please join us this Tuesday, May 29, at 5:30 p.m. for a Capstone Journey chaperone meeting. We will meet on the North side of Grades 3-5. Topics addressed at this meeting will include: chaperone responsibilities before and during the Journey, ways you can help out (food coordination, teaching a lesson), and final details of the trip. A pre-trip test will also be administered. Only Capstone chaperones are expected to attend this meeting.

Physical Education
Our personal fitness unit will continue this week. Last week, Ryan taught students how to monitor their heart rate as they hiked up Snow King. He stressed how exercising one’s heart muscle is part of a healthy lifestyle. Please encourage your child to wear workout clothes and good hiking, walking, or running shoes every Wednesday for the rest of the trimester.

Thank You
Thank you to all of the families and friends who attended the fifth grade Capstone presentations last week.

Curriculum Updates

Third and Fourth Grade Journey to Pinedale
Grades three and four had a memorable extended Journey to Pinedale, Wyoming last week. Our pathway to Pinedale began by following the historical migration route of the pronghorn antelope. Students watched carefully for stumbling blocks and stepping stones antelope might encounter along the route. Furthermore, students compared their own running speed to that of a pronghorn. We were all amazed to discover that pronghorn can cover 66 feet in one second. Each pronghorn spotted along the drive was cheered on by vans full of energetic students shouting, “Run Pronghorn run! You can do it! You’re almost there!” Students’ shouts were reminiscent of cheers from the sidelines at the Boston Marathon.

One stumbling block that we investigated as a group was the historical site, Trapper’s Point. Bernie Holz, a wildlife biologist, met us at Trapper’s Point to share stories of the diverse pathways which had crossed the very ground we were sitting upon. Pronghorn antelope, Native Americans, mountain men, mule deer, cattle, and explorers all have walked across Trapper’s Point for 8000 years. Bernie also pointed out the historic Green River rendezvous site from the era of the mountain man. That evening, students made jewelry that could have been traded at a mountain man rendezvous in preparation for the following morning’s visit to the Museum of the Mountain Man.

At the Museum of the Mountain Man, students participated in living history days and learned with five different mountain men. From these mountain men we learned about trapping beaver, their unique style of clothing, Native American sign language, and living in a tipi.

After participating in living history days, students received an informative tour of the Pinedale Anticline oil and gas development from Shell. Wearing hard hats, safety glasses and gloves, we had the unique opportunity to visit an oil rig and see the pathway of natural gas from the ground to the refinery. Our last night of the journey was spent sharing songs and celebrating our community around the campfire. The following morning, before returning to Jackson, we met eight Pinedale Middle School students who were science fair state and national finalists. Each middle school student presented his or her science fair project to us and taught us interesting facts about the effects of oil and gas development on the health of local resources.

Overall, students were exposed to a variety of perspectives on this journey, and they were encouraged to gather as much information as possible before forming opinions about the topics studied. We were continually impressed with students’ ability to look at issues from multiple perspectives and discuss the pros and cons of various methods and decisions. These are life-long skills that teachers will continue to nurture at school.

Multiple personal pathways were explored and woven together on the grades three and four extended Journey. Below is a list of personal pathways studied on this Journey, in addition to student quotes related to each pathway.

-The historical migration pathway of pronghorn antelope:
“Stepping stones for pronghorn might include open plains, tunnels, sagebrush, and people. Stumbling blocks might include fences, oil fields, rivers, roads, deep snow, wires, litter, people, holes, and mountains.”
“The bottoms of barbed wire fences around Trapper’s Point aren’t barbed so that pronghorn can crawl underneath without getting hurt.”
“All pronghorn in Wyoming travel through Trapper’s Point.”

-The pathway of the mountain man:
“A famous mountain man walked from Jackson to Pocatello naked with an arrow in his leg!”
“Trapper’s point is a very special place!”
“Tipi’s were better for mountain men than cabins.”
“Mountain men trapped beavers for fancy hats.”

-The pathway of glaciers and water in Pinedale:
“Freemont Lake was formed by glaciers.”
“The people of Pinedale get their drinking water from Fremont Lake, the lake our cabins were by.”

-The pathway of natural gas on the Pinedale Anticline:
“The gas and oil is made from really, really old fossils.”
“Many of the workers on the oilfield won’t be able to see their families for seven months.”
“Working at the oil and gas fields is really hard.”

Life Skills: Human Growth and Maturation
The Grades 3-5 Life Skills Program is designed to help students learn and practice skills related to effective communication, problem solving, decision making, organization, peer relationships, and healthy growth and development. Each year human growth and maturation sessions are presented to students in the spring. These sessions focus on nutrition, body image, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Maturation is addressed with students in grades four and five only. We have had great success with parent involvement in this program. We thank Janet Garland and Lisa Finkelstein (Journeys School sixth grader Dani Domsky’s mother) for their involvement this year. Parents are welcome to attend all classes. If questions should arise, please contact your child’s advisor. Information about the topics addressed during these lessons can be found below.

On Tuesday, June 12, Janet Garland will lead the third and fourth graders through a lesson about nutrition and body image from 1:00-2:30 p.m. Topics addressed during this class will include the basics of nutrition (fats, proteins, and carbohydrates), dietary recommendations, how to read a food label, and issues of body image and self-esteem.

On Thursday, June 14, Dr. Lisa Finkelstein (girls) and Ryan Bolton (boys) will lead the fifth graders through lessons about human growth and maturation from 8:30-9:30 a.m. Topics addressed during this class will include: changes that occur during puberty (physical, emotional, and behavioral changes), new roles and expectations, male and female reproductive systems, and personal hygiene. Students will view a video entitled “We’re Growing Up,” which addresses male and female development.

Announcements

Capstone Journey

Plans are being finalized for the 8th grade capstone journey. We will be in the field from Tuesday the 29th through Friday the 1st, If there is an emergency, please contact Rhonda Watson at Journeys (Journeys main line 733-3729, or Rhonda’s ext. 1221). We will be checking in with her daily. If you have any questions about the journey, please contact Charles (ext. 1132).

Curricular Updates

Social Science

Middle school social science just completed our final projects for the American Environmental Movement unit. Students could choose between writing a paper about a famous environmentalist, writing a paper and making a display, creating a map of public lands in the Jackson Hole area, investigating human pressures on Yellowstone National Park, responding to a quote from a famous environmentalist or investigating how Romanticism in 18th century American art contributed to environmentalism. The students produced some very insightful and creative projects! To conclude the trimester, students will study current local environmental attitudes by using survey techniques.

Level 2 math is winding up our year with the 3 dimensional geometry unit. After investigating cubes, boxes and prisms, students are investigating more difficult shapes such as cylinders, cones and spheres. Students will develop strategies for finding the volumes of cones and spheres; find the relationships among the volumes of cylinders, cones, and spheres and reason about problems involving cylinders, cones, and spheres.

Science

Students ended their term in science exploring concepts of invasive species. Level 1 students created posters to educate the public about local noxious weeds. Level 2 students had a choice between a poster/essay about a local noxious weed or a persuasive paper addressing the ethical responsibilities humans have or do not have in controlling invasive species. Level 3 students wrote persuasive papers and participated in another class discussion sharing their ideas. After the journey students will spend several days learning about migratory species and then use that knowledge in the culminating project looking at conservation issues between Mexico and the US. Earlier in the term Level 2 and 3 students read an excerpt from Aldo Leopold’s A Sand Country Almanac. Below is a synopsis of the piece by Emily Boney and two interpretations written by Taylor Watson and Hayden Shea.

At first, Leopold took a “farmer’s view” of wolves, meaning the less wolves there are, the better for everyone. Later on, he realizes that wolves help balance particular ecosystems. He also notes that without the wolves, deer become more numerous and start to kill off plants. These points helped to change his mind about wolves, but what really got through to him was seeing the dying light in the eyes of a wolf he had killed. The light seemed to tell him of the ecosystem’s balance.

I think he means to respect. The mountain is just there to support the life. It doesn’t interfere with the way life goes. It doesn’t favor animals over rocks or elk or wolves. The mountain has no opinion what so ever. Also the mountain doesn’t make mistakes because it just watches life. I think Leopold is saying that people should be more like mountains and they should be devoid of all egoism.

When Leopold says, “thinking like a mountain” I think he means viewing the world with a bigger perspective and seeing how things are connected. For example, the hunter thinks about what he wants to hunt, the wolf just focuses on killing deer, and the deer are focused on how to escape the wolf and forage. These animals are not thinking like a mountain because they are only thinking about their own wants and needs. To think like a mountain is to see how the hunter, deer, and wolf are connected and how each one has their own special place in the ecosystem.

Announcements

Upper School Students were away on a journey to Boise, Idaho last week. We are all eager to hear of their experiences.  More details of their journey will be written next week.

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© 2005, Basecamp News, Journeys School of Teton Science Schools.