Every quarter, the parents, the teachers, and the students all come up with goals for the next quarter. The kids are empowered to come up with their own goals. For example, Moo said she wanted to be in a play and make 5 new friends.
Every year there is a science fair. All the kids are invited to participate. They can come up with whatever project they want, if they want, and the parents are expected to help them carry out the project. Both our girls said they wanted to participate. I asked them what they would like to learn about. Moo said she wants to know why some plants die in the winter, but come back in the spring. G-bear said she wants to know why wolves howl at the moon. So, in the coming weeks, we will be making those questions into projects.
We're not exactly clear on this one, but according to the girls, each class has someone in student council (even the kindergarten). In the 1-2 class, Moo said everyone filled out a form, and indicated whether they would like to give a speech in front of the whole school. Those who responded that they would, were put on a list, and the class voted for who they thought should be on student council from that list. As you can probably guess, Moo did not choose to be on the list.
We started hearing about the student council process one day when G-bear was telling us about her day, and she said, "Well. . . . I think just about everyone in my class voted for me. . . it was kinda embarrassing." We asked her lots of questions, and according to her, she and one other girl from her class were voted to be on student council. We said, "So does that mean you'll give a speech to the whole school?" and she confidently said, "Yep." A little surprised, we asked her if she had thought about what she would say. She said that they were supposed to say what they thought would make the school a better place. She told us, "I will say that if every class treated every other class as if it was their own class, that would make the school better." Apparently, she had already thought this through and figured it out! We still aren't sure how accurate all this reporting is, because we haven't talked to her teacher yet, but it sure was entertaining anyway.
One popular event at their school is the Multicultural Fair, which happens every December. Each class discusses what country they want to represent, votes on it, and then spends several weeks learning about that country. For the fair, they transform their room into that country, in some way. We were especially excited because Moo's class chose Colombia, and her cousins live there! They put on a play of the story of the Biblioburro. Each kid got to choose who they wanted to be, and come up with a costume. Moo decided to be a Quetzal.
G-Bear's class studied Mexico, so both girls were reciting the little bits of Spanish they were each learning. When their cousins arrived from Colombia, they generously visited both classrooms and spoke a little Spanish in each. G-Bear's class learned about the desert, the Day of the Dead, food, and clothes from Mexico.
The night of the fair was actually very chaotic and crowded, but we were happy to see what the girls' classes had been working on. As you enter the fair, everyone can get a passport. At each room, you can get a stamp to put in your passport. As it turns out, I found the event to also be a way to get a sense for the style of the teacher in each room. Some where much more free form, and some were very tidy with everything in place. Here are a couple pictures from the Multicultural Fair:
I've been wondering how school is going for the girls...so good to hear about your experiences-it sounds wonderful!
ReplyDelete