Winter Celebration, Tuesday, December 12th

Please join us the evening of Tuesday, December 12 for the Annual Winter Celebration. This year, in an effort to accommodate larger crowds and to adapt the celebration to showcase all types of student learning, we have changed the format of the evening. There will be three parts to the program, starting with a performance from the younger students, followed by an exhibition and social gathering in the Education Center, and ending with a middle and upper school learning exhibition. We encourage you to come to some or all of this celebratory evening showcasing student work.

5:30 – 6:30 PM Pre-K through 5th grade performance:

In the Dining Lodge, the Pre-K through 5th grade students will share songs and presentations that they have worked on over the course of the fall. If you are planning on attending the social gathering, please drop off food in the Education Center before the 5:30 performance. 6:30 – 7:00 PM Social gathering and set up of middle and upper school exhibition: All families are invited to sample healthy, pre-dinner hors d’oeuvres in the Education Center or transition home with younger students. Also in the Education Center, Pre-K through 5th grade art and school work will be displayed. During this time, the middle and upper school students will set up the Dining Lodge for their winter performance and learning exhibition.

7:00 – 8:00 PM Grades 6-12 winter learning exhibition and performance:

The middle and upper school students will display various examples of work and presenting their learning. Join students and faculty for an evening of sharing that has occurred over the trimester. This is a great opportunity for parents of all students to see how and what learning occurs in the middle and upper schools.

If you plan on coming to the social gathering from 6:30 to 7:00, please bring a healthy hors d’oeuvre to share with others. Please drop off food before the performance in the Education Center. As with other Journeys School gatherings, we are trying to make this a sustainable event by minimizing resource use. Please plan on car-pooling if possible and bring food in reusable dishes. In addition, we also will carry out our annual toy and blanket drive for the Wind River Reservation. Donation items should be brought to the winter celebration.

Holiday Giving

The faculty of Journeys School respectfully requests that if you were considering a traditional holiday "teacher gift" to please consider making a donation to the Journeys School Annual Fund instead. A gift to the annual fund benefits all teachers AND all students!

December Schedule for After School Program

Monday Dec. 11th: Create your own wrapping paper!

Tuesday Dec. 12th: ***Due to the Winter Celebration, after school will run from 3- 5pm on-campus, we will not go to the Rec. Center as usual.  Please pack a dinner or send a box of Mac n' Cheese that can be heated up or made prior to the evening events.

Wednesday Dec. 13th: Hot Cocoa & Sledding

Thursday Dec.14th: Teton County Library Visit

Monday Dec. 18th: ***Create your own gingerbread house!!

***PLEASE EMAIL erin.smith@journeysschool.org by Friday Dec. 15th if you would like to sign-up for this special event, twelve students will be the maximum.

No After School on Tuesday on Dec. 19th.

December Lunch Menu 

December 15th

Pizza

Carrot Sticks

Holiday Fruit salad

Christmas cookies

Pre-Kindergarten

Announcements

Thanks to:
Sara Dykema for helping Sydney with 1st and 2nd grade art every Thursday!

Jenn Foley, Anne Ladd and Karla Tessler. We appreciate your energy and ideas for the K-2 mom’s party and we look forward to having in January when everyone’s not so busy! Stay tuned for more information.

Lee Lee Robinson and Jenn Foley for baking yummy treats for K-2 snack!

Carl and Dana Nagel (Reagan and Raines’ parents) for donating classroom supplies.

All the parents, Journeys School students and faculty, community members and Jackson Campus faculty that took the time to come to our encore performance of ‘The Life of the Muries’. The grand finale’ of the trimester packed a full house and you may even read about it in the JH News and Guide… be on the lookout!

Winter Celebration
At the Winter Celebration tomorrow night, be sure to peruse the

K-2 student work that will be on display in the Education Center. You’ll find art and writing projects, as well as our ‘theme quilt’, which reflects each students’ favorite trimester memory and/or experience. The K-2 students will be singing “Marshmallow World”, “I’m an Explorer”, and “Saraspunda” Performances for Pre-K through 5th grade are from 5:30 – 6:30 PM.

Trimester Reports
Can you believe it’s that time again? We are planning to do an electronic distribution of reports this trimester! We will send a letter in your child's folder with directions on how to access their trimester report via the internet.

Curricular Updates
Literacy Assessments
We are in the process of assessing each student in literacy. We are extremely proud of our students for working so hard on their reading and word study and the growth that has already taken place in only one trimester is amazing! Thanks for all the support at home, your hard work is really paying off. We will be modifying our approach to teaching literacy after winter break, and we look forward to sharing more details with you then.

Activities for Monday 12/18 and Tuesday 12/19
On the Monday and Tuesday before winter break begins, we have some festive activities planned. On Monday, December 18th, we’ll be cooking and making pillows, candles, and picture frames. On Tuesday, December 19th, we’ll be learning how other cultures celebrate holidays around the world. If you would like to help students with any of these exciting projects, we would love to have you join us! Let us know the activity that excites you and we will sign you up to join a teacher. On both days, we’ll be doing these rotations from 9:30-10:30 and then again from 10:50- 11:40. If you already know your child will NOT be at school either and/or both of these two days, please let us know!

Announcements

Library Visit

The students in the Grades 3-5 North Den will visit the Teton County Library from 1:00-2:30 this afternoon.  If you have not already sent your child’s library card to school, please do so.  We would like to keep a class set at school for library visits.

Thank You

Thank you to the Daily family for donating two books to our classroom library.  Books are always appreciated! 

Holiday Absences

If your child will miss school because of holiday travel, please notify his/her advisor as soon as possible.  Advance notice of planned absences helps the teachers stay organized.  Thank you. 

Curriculum Updates

Science

As part of our study of life cycles, students individually dissected lima bean seeds and found the cotyledons, seed coat, embryonic root, and first leaves within the seed.  They had their choice of a variety of seeds to plant including lima beans, chickpeas, corn kernels, apple seeds, and pepper seeds and planted one to four seeds in a pot of dirt.  The pots were placed by each group of students somewhere in the Grades 3-5 North side, and students are required to water and care for them.  Unfortunately there has been no growth of our seeds, but we continue to water in hope that something will grow.  In the meantime, we started to graph the growth of paper white bulbs in centimeters, which are growing nicely. Last week in class, students learned more about plant processes such photosynthesis and plant responses to light (phototropism) and to gravity (geotropism) in order to figure out how to best serve their growing plants. 

Spanish

This term in Spanish, we will examine the pathways into our family, home, and community. We will begin the trimester by making family trees and learning the words for different relatives.  Students should bring in photocopied or original photographs of their family members on Tuesday, December 12 to cut and glue onto the posters they will be creating.  If they don't know the names of some of their more distant relatives, it would be helpful to have these written down as well. After describing relatives and learning vocabulary associated with professions and personal characteristics, we will study the vocabulary from the home.  Students will learn to identify different parts of the house, as well as vocabulary associated with common chores.  We will finish the trimester using our Spanish to examine the community of Jackson Hole. There may even be opportunities to use Spanish outside the classroom walls as we learn more about the important contributions of the Latino community in our town.

            In an effort to meet the learning needs of all students, we reorganized Spanish groups this trimester.  We worked hard to place children in appropriate levels.  The goal of the elementary Spanish program is for students to gain confidence using the new language.  These group changes should help some students feel more comfortable speaking up in class, while others will be more appropriately challenged. If your son or daughter thinks the pace is too fast or too slow in his or her new group at the end of this week, please contact his/her advisor.

Life Skills

Inspired by Robert Shetterly’s book, Americans Who Tell the Truth, Journeys School Grades 3-5 students explored their own truths.  Students were introduced to heroes in American history through Shetterly’s book.  Grades 3-5 students perused the quotes featured in Americans Who Tell the Truth and quotes written by elementary-aged children from other schools in the United States.  Students then wrote their own statement in response to the following question: “If you climbed to the top of a mountain and shouted a statement to the entire world, what would you say?”  Students are currently completing self-portraits to accompany their statement. Both pieces will be published in a class book. Below are a few of the statements created by students in Grades 3-5.

"Remember, family always comes first. Never put them second.”                                                                  --Daniela Contreras

"Think before you speak and act.” --Lyons Wells

"I think that people should take each other for what we are and not make war because of differences.”-- Katie Broyles

"Why can’t we just be grateful for what we have?” Cosette Kortum

"Countries shouldn’t fight with each other”-- Caden Garland

"Watching something go wrong is not as fulfilling as knowing you did something about it.”--Shelley Vohr

"Be fair, don’t go to war and maybe the world will be different.”

                                                                      --Michelle Slaughter

"If people say they give money and respect to those who need it, why are there still poor and disrespected people?”

                                                                      --Brooke Terkovich

"Be nice to everybody not mean!”  --Henry Jones

Announcements

Winter Electives

We are looking for volunteers to lead a winter elective starting in February after the ski program has ended. Elective time is for one hour on Wednesday afternoons and will run approximately 8 weeks.  Elective offerings in the past have included knitting, improvisational theater, world sports, open studio art, community service, rocket building, a cappella singing, and others. So far we are planning to offer art, yearbook, quilting, music and cooking electives this winter. If you’d like to help with one of these, or if you have a different talent or interest to share with a small group of middle school students, we would love to add you to our list of offerings. Please contact Chris Horne (x1106) if you are interested.

Tues, December 12
Young Adult Board Meeting. 6-7 p.m. Young Adult Board will meet at the library, although the building will be closed for Staff Facilities Planning Workshop. Young adults in grades six to 12 meet to plan teen events and put ideas into action. Registration and school-year commitment required. www.TCLib.org/teens Cost: Free. Location: Ordway Auditorium. Contact: Lara Lovett, 733-2164 ext. 221, llovett@will.state.wy.us.

Thank you

Thank you to Jill Wright for volunteering your time to work with Margot and Dennis to direct the winter performance. Students are constantly quoting various lines out of class and your enthusiasm brings extra sunshine to our winter days.

Appropriate Clothing

Please remember students need to be field-ready dressed at school at all times, which means appropriate layers and outer gear. Pajamas are not suitable attire for school.

Curricular Updates

Winter Trimester Theme: Forces in Opposition

To continue middle school’s year-long study of “Conflict and Cooperation,” the winter trimester theme will be, “Forces in Opposition.” This guiding theme acts as a solid bridge between our fall and spring themes, respectively, “Revolutions” and “Seeking Balance.” The winter trimester theme allows students to explore major world events, both current and historical. Faculty place a special emphasis on relating these “Forces in Opposition” to challenges young adolescents may face. By investigating a broad theme, students are guided to examine their own lives, perhaps gaining, at least, a new perspective and, at best, solutions. In the next few Basecamp News editions, faculty will describe what their class is doing in particular to integrate skills and content with this theme.

Social Science

In social science, each trimester begins with a week-long study of a skill. This trimester, the skill is graphic organizers. Students are introduced to various organizers and the particular function each serves. Examples of organizers studied include, day planners, organizational charts, flow charts, mind maps and story maps. Ask your student to name the functions of graphic organizers!

Next, in keeping with the trimester theme of Forces in Opposition, students will study the American Civil War. Special emphasis will be placed on the causes of the war, followed by a research project asking students to select a topic and then create a presentation.

Curricular Updates

Physical and Health Education

Physical and health education came to a close this trimester with our leadership unit.  During this unit students participated in adventure activities that focused on bringing out every student’s leadership qualities with an emphasis on nine specific leadership characteristics.  The unit ended with student developed and taught activities that highlighted leadership skills.  During the current mini-mester there is no formal P.E., however, the entire upper school will be taking a trip to the Snow King center for ice-skating from 10:00 to 12:00 on December 13th.  If students own their own ice skates, they are encouraged to bring them on that day.

Mini-mester

For the two and a half weeks before Christmas, regular classes are suspended to make way for “mini-mester”. Students have the opportunity to select two electives, while continuing their semester projects (Challenge 2020 and Project GYE) and math class.  The six electives are:

Dissection:  How can we look at animals inside and out?  Aaron is leading the students through a careful dissection of a fetal pig.  The purpose of the fetal pig dissection is to provide a hands-on experience with vertebrate anatomy in order to develop a deeper appreciation for the complexity of our internal systems. Themes that will focus the learning will include 1) simple to complex: How do mammalian systems compare to other animals? (Comparative anatomy) 2) Structure and function: How is each organ structured to perform its specific function? (Evolutionary perspective).When they are finished with the dissection, they will prepare study specimens of different organisms such as a short tailed weasel and a Coopers hawk.

Cooking: Kjera is teaching the students the basics of good cooking.  Students have contributed family recipes for a school cookbook.  Not only will the class prepare a variety of delicious dishes in the school’s kitchen, but they will also visit some local restaurants and interview the chefs.  As a final project, they will prepare a three course meal from a world culture.

Bridges: Sarah has designed a Bridge Building contest.  Using only popsicle sticks and glue, students will build a bridge that will judged on how much load it can bear, the ratio of the load to the bridge's weight, and aesthetic concerns such as neatness, how realistic it is, and how good it looks.  During the mini-mester share time, students will load the bridges to failure.  

Fine Arts: In this course, Dennis will lead the students through the design and execution of outdoor sculptures in the style of Andy Goldsworthy.

Film Studies: David is leading a class on film studies.  The purpose of the film studies mini-mester course is to provide a better understanding and deeper appreciation for filming techniques and intended effects. Students will learn filming techniques and see them demonstrated in a number of short film clips. Students will also watch full features, discuss them as a group, and eventually they will write film reviews as an assessment.

Robotics:  In this course led by Nate, students will be introduced to the basic construction and operation of simple robots. Two simple robots will be built during the course. Students will learn about simple electronic parts and how they function.

                 Look here for an editorial next week.

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