Celebrating Good Endings

   Thanks to Ruth  at Discover.Play.Build, Ruth Ayres Writes for reminding us to celebrate every chance we get. Tweet at #Celebratelu

    It was a week of celebrating endings. Thursday, our school held our wonderful Exposition (Expo), something like a science fair where each student shares the accumulation of his unit topic learning for the year, yes, for the year!  It is an amazing evening, with many visitors including families, neighbors, former students and parents all returning to see what students have been doing all year. We have about 250 students, thirteen classrooms, and every single students has a display. With everyone's help, but especially the core teachers, which I was for many years, we celebrate the learning. It is an evening extraordinaire. Then a half day Friday, and we're on vacation for a week! Here are a few pictures of projects that caught my eye, arranged from youngest to oldest. I didn't do a slide show this time, but just took a few pictures to offer a taste!

              This final one is part of a student's study of metal work in art. I just took a small part of the students' entire displays, things that caught my eye that offer a range of interpretation of learning.  There are also lots of reports, pamphlets, movies and posters, and the best part, talking to the students about their work, what was challenging, what was delightful, etc.  And the last question, what's next? Sometimes students change direction, sometimes they change topics entirely and start again, to question and to find new ideas to wonder about.

             And, I ended my time as a round two Cybil's judge early this week.  After many 'online' conversations where I learned so much from my co-judges about examining a body of work, a published book of poetry, we made a decision.  Congratulations to Amy Ludwig VanDerwater and Robbin Gourley for their book Forest Has A Song which was awarded the Cybil's Poetry Prize yesterday.  If you'd like to see the other winners, look here!  This list is a terrific list, as is the one here with all the finalists.

      My son and family are in from Texas to ski, and will spend Sunday and Monday here before returning.  It's such a pleasure to have them visit and I always wish they still lived a few miles away, but I am also glad they can come as often as they do!
      Have a terrific week everyone. I hope you had a special Valentine's Day!