Christmas E-Card 2012

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A Celebration: Sadie

Sadie and Eli go to a charter school called Schoolcraft Learning Community that is located in the French Village of Concordia Language Villages. Their school is an expeditionary learning school which basically means that there is an an "expedition" that each crew is on which is theme/project based that encompasses state standards as well as follows expeditionary "design principles."
Sadie's crew, being kindergarteners, had the theme: Knowing Where We're Going--What it means to be a Schoolcrafter. They spent their expedition time figuring out where all of the buildings are, who all of the teachers and staff are, what makes Schoolcraft unique, and they learned all 10 design principles and what they mean. At the end of the expedition they have a "Celebration of Learning" in which they share all of their work and learning with parents and students.
Last night was Sadie's celebration and she was so proud of all the work that she has done. Here's just a small sampling.
In art class, they worked very very hard drawing self-portraits:

They used a technology tool called comic life to make an All About Me scrapbook page:

There was a list of all of the design principles and Sadie told us all about each one and why they are important. This one is service and compassion:

She said that "The Natural World" design principle is her favorite design principle because taking care of our world is very important. The earth doesn't need us, but we need it:

These are jars that they keep in their classroom. Every time they read a book or see something that has to do with a design principle they add a rock to the jar:

This book is a take-off of "If I Ran the Zoo" by Dr. Seuss and it is based on the design principle "The having of wonderful ideas". Sadie's animal is a elephantgiraff. "It ets levs and met."

This is a picture of a video that the kids made. They took short videos of each staff member so they could get to know them all a little bit better. The kids also made and recorded skits demonstrating each design principle.

Here is Sadie and her teacher AnnaMae.



Thank you Schoolcraft for being such an amazing place to learn!!

Visiting Santa!!

While in Fargo over Thanksgiving we went to Santa's Village to visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus. I'm thinking that this will be the last year that Eli believes as he's already asking questions like "Is it you who puts the presents under the tree for Santa?". Neither of them were thrilled about sitting on Santas lap, but they did tell him what they wanted for Christmas. Sadie wants a remote control puppy that you can walk. Eli wants a real football in his size and a Giants football helmet and jersey. He's a big Eli Manning fan--imagine that!

After visiting with Santa the kids decorated cookies with Mrs. Claus. Mrs. Claus loves telling jokes so she and Sadie got along very well as Sadie is ALWAYS telling jokes.

The kids also made an ornament, went on a wagon ride, and wrote letters to Santa. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon!

 

On the way out, we stopped in the barn and visited the reindeer. They were frisky little guys who were chasing each other and butting antlers!! It as a great way to start the holiday season. Thanks, grandma, for taking us!!