Stewards of Our Place: Ash Street Field

Ah, Ash Street Field.... Here, we have been scientists, writers, stewards and playful. We have a sense of ownership and responsibility for this place. This role is shared with Metro, the governmental entity that owns this private-use wetland.

To further nurture our role as stewards and fill an authentic need to gage public awareness of this space, the Swallows have created a survey for public in the neighborhoods surrounding Ash Street Field.

We have collected our first round of completed surveys and have begun to analyze the information. We are identifying both what neighbors know (fact and misconceptions) and what they want to know. This will guide our information share with Metro and the public.

The students were all so professional during their interactions with neighbors!

This week, Tom Gamble from Forest Grove Parks and Rec. will visit to share more about the Emerald Necklace trailhead that borders Ash Street Field. Next week, the stewardship coordinator from Metro will meet with us and June 3rd we will have our final information share. Watch for updates...

Playing in the Mud?

While not exactly "play" or mud, making cob at Nana Cardoon's was an absolute giddy joy. Just look at their faces...

Richard guided the Swallows as they mixed soil, clay, sand and water by dancing (really.. we did the twist) to create a building material similar to adobe. With plans to create a cob bench in our school garden, we needed to have some experience with the material.

We shared our experience with our Owl buddies (Level 3, Chris) and then worked with our buddies and the cob to try and create invertebrate inspired bench models. It was messy and tricky, but we learned a lot about working as partners and the limitations of the material. Last week buddies took a step back and drew plans for their bench design. The designs are inventive and indicate applied understanding about the material.

Tomorrow we will meet with the Owls again to create 3-d models of these plans. Our goal is to propose one of these benches for the FGCS garden to be built during the VBC. We will keep you posted.

Goal!

What's Growing on in the Goal Garden?

Make sure you check out the blooms, fruits and veggies that have emerged. Each one indicates a student personal goal was met! This deserves a yippee and hooray for each one also represents the student's initiative, perseverance and collaboration with family and school community.

The front of the school will be even more beautiful because of a student goal to create a butterfly garden, and because of her peers collaboration to make it happen.

18 level 1 and 2 "LEGO- lovers" are getting together and practicing teamwork, cooperation creative expression because of a student's personal goal and the family support to make it happen.

Our community is a little cleaner because of a O&A Trash Collection Contest for level 1 and 2 coordinated by a student personal goal.

There are ongoing goals and new sprouts too (that means new goals)!

We have students who are writing chapter books, teaching science inquiry, making a documentary about volcanoes, co-teaching music with our music volunteer, teaching ballet and jazz to a group of peers, teaching drawing and coordinating a fundraiser for the ASPCA, to name a few.

Thank you again, Families, for your support! These kids see no limits!

Forward MARCH!!!! AKA what is happening this month...

I am sorry, but who pushed the fast-forward button? How is it possible that we are 2/3 of the way through this school year and already near through the month of March? Ugh...now we have the time change to boot (you did remember to jump forward an hour?)

Let's jump right in....

Our listening library project for Adelantes Mujeres with the Merlins is complete. Each buddy group put together a wonderful packet, complete with audio recording of selected book and supplementary learning activities. To be truly complete, we would like to be able to send the book along too. For this we need your help. We are seeking donations of selected book titles to send along to the Adelante Preschool. Below is a list of titles we still need. Please let me know if you need the authors name to locate the book and if you are able to donate (used or new) this title to make our project complete. When we have collected each title, we will coordinate a trip to deliver the literacy packets to the preschool. Thanks for helping to make a reader!

-I Saw It Happen On Mulberry Street (Seuss) -If You Give A Cat A Cupcake

-Butter Battle Book (Seuss) - Thomas the Tiger

-Green Eggs and Ham (Seuss) - Chrysanthemum

-Horton Hatches an Egg (Seuss) -The Girl Who Swam With the Fish

-Imogene's Antlers - The Secret Shortcut

-The Little Red Hen

SOMETHING TO TREASURE....

Our Treasure book is almost finished! This week we decide on a title for this homage to and informational tour of Nana Cardoon, the garden-farm that has become our treasured backyard. The Swallows have taken this authorship task very seriously and have worked very hard to create this informational book and scrapbook of experience. Thank you to all have already sent in order/decline sheets. If you have not sent in either an order form or a decline to order, please do so by Wednesday this week. Even if you decide not to order, your completion of the form guarantees the class a copy of the published book. If you do wish to order, unlike other books we have created in the past, this book can not be ordered at a later date. There is just one publication run. If you would like to see a mock-up print, please contact me by email or in person by Wednesday morning.

AUTHORS' TEA: THIS FRIDAY!

This will be our 3rd opportunity this year for Swallow writers to publish and share the writing they are doing in the classroom. All Swallows will have the opportunity to share their Treasure book pages and many writers have indicated they have pieces to share with the Swallow audience. This Tea will be the first "trial" with a microphone. Join us as audience, if you are able.

SPRING BREAK IS NEXT WEEK

When we return...

WEDNESDAY is our O&A to Nana Cardoons to learn about and explore creating cobb mud structures/sculptures. Alas....although our initial plan was to create a FGCS earth oven and many of us prepared to support this, we have since discovered that we can not create this for our school. This will not preclude our cobb workshop with Nana Cardoon on March 31st or our plan to create both a useful and aesthetically pleasing cobb structure.

O&A this week...

We will have two outings this week and the weather is predicted to cooperate! That is worth the outing alone... However, there are additional reasons we will be heading outdoors.

WEDNESDAY: This week, we will begin "publishing" our backyard "Critters" storyline and shifting our full-time focus to Ash Street. Over the next couple months, we will become "experts" about this space (what lives and grows here and public and educational use) to create some information sharing product/forum. Wednesday, we will head to Ash Street at 1:00 p.m-3:00 p.m. to identify and record native plants and animals and to work toward deciding upon focus for independent study.

THURSDAY: We have been gifted the opportunity to explore another local organic garden/farm (think Nana Cardoons...) and habitat for natives wildlife (insects, amphibians and mammals) with a buddy classroom.

This Thursday, we will head to Flamingo Ridge Farm near Gaston at 9:05 a.m., with our Peace Buddies (Charlie's Level 2 classroom). There, we will tour the garden farm to gather inspiration and information for our own garden/farm. We will spend time identifying native plants, insects and animals species. If the weather cooperates, we will have lunch there and return to school by 12:30.

One Book, Two Books, Read Books, Knew books...

You're never too old, too wacky, too wild,


To pick up a book and read with a child.


You're never too busy, too cool, or too hot,


To pick up a book and share what you've got.

In schools and communities,
Let's gather around,


Let's pick up a book,
Let's pass it around.

Read a book all day long, read to someone you know,

Oh the thinks you will think, oh, the places you'll go!

March 2, is Dr. Suess' birthday and is celebrated as Read-Across- America Day! This Tuesday is all about reading! We will have guest readers, buddy reading and time to enjoy independent reading as well. We will explore a "Suess-ish" substance called Oobleck and try to determine if it is a solid or liquid (we might find it has properties of both). Because we want to focus on the reading, we need to be really comfortable. Tree Swallows are invited to wear PJ's and bring one favorite stuffed friend (to read to). We will be going outside for break, so please make sure to have a coat and shoes. Slippers are o.k. in the classroom.

Wednesday is our trip to Salem for the Entomology Museum and to the Children's Museum for a "Bug building" class. We will be leaving FGCS parking lot sharply at 9:00am and will return at 2:45 pm. We will not have access to a microwave for lunches. The majority of our O&A will be indoors. However, we are planning on having lunch and a short break outside, so please make sure that your child is prepared in case of rain (forecast say's it is supposed to be raining).

If that isn't excitement enough for one day... Wednesday evening is Celebrations of Learning 5:00-6:30. This is like an open-house event where you can come see what is going on in the classroom. Come explore our backyard Storyline (character homes, diary entries and the Critter Cafe menu items). We will have samples of the Swallows work with the Merlins (recorded books and supplemental activities) and an invitation to help complete this gift to the Adelante Mujeres preschool.

LET'S GO OUT WITH A BANG... The Pennies for Peace fundraiser was scheduled to end February 28th. We are so close to our goal of $300.00 and have done so much to prepare for this project. To honor the investment of time and creativity by the Tree Swallows and the Kestrels, we will be showcasing student Pennies for Peace PSAs and inviting your penny donations during this Celebrations of Learning evening.

What's up next?

Monday, March 8, we will be heading to the Oregon Zoo. There we will participate in a guided exploration of habitat with a NW focus. I am seeking a few parent guides for this trip. If you are willing and able, please contact me asap.

On Wednesday, we turn our attention to Ash Street Field, where we will look for signs of NW life and broaden our research in preparation for our public information product (later this year).

Oh, the places we'll go...

This Wednesday, we are off to Nana Cardoons! We will begin our afternoon there with our Level 3 “Garden” buddies to explore soil, research plans and perhaps, help Richard and Charlene prepare their garden for planting (this gets us ready for when it will be time to plant our FGCS garden). The second half of our time there will be time to work on our Treasure Book (shhhhh… this will be a surprise for our hosts). Tree Swallows will be taking photos, researching and mapping grounds (depending on their topic pages) to create a book about this garden farm and what lives, grows and visits here, including our experiences.

It is estimated that there are approximately 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) individual insects alive. There are 1,017,018 species of insects in the world with some experts estimating that there just might be as many as 10 million species out there. That means you could spend your whole life looking at different kinds of insects and you'll never be able to see them all.

That doesn’t mean we aren’t gonna try, though. On Wednesday, March 3^rd, we are going The Oregon Department of Agriculture's Insect Museum in Salem. The collection, with 150,000 pinned specimens, is open to small tour groups. It's hard to imagine, but 95% of all the animal species on the earth are insects!!

Where we left off...

The Tree Swallows bid farewell to our Ash Street invertebrates last week. The weather was perfect for our trek to the wetland and their homecoming. Along the way we pointed out signs of spring (they are everywhere!) and collected litter (Tree Swallow, Josie has set a semester goal to encourage litter collection on all O&A and create a cleaner Forest grove).

That same lovely day, back in the classroom, we met new “guests.” Riddle: What do you call a worm with 6 legs, 2 antennae and shedding skin? Answer: Tenebrio molitor, or mealworm for short. And your budding entomologists will tell you, the mealworm is no “worm” at all! The “un-worm” shares a habitat with a pupa and a darkling beetle.

This inquiry study has us learning and applying scientific observation skills. We have discussed and applied qualitative observation—using our senses and recording visible characteristics of the mealworm, a pupa and a darkling beetle. Students closely and carefully examined each and recorded their theory of the relationship between the three critters. This week, we will formally discuss collecting quantitative data (quantity, measurement, change over time) in order to confirm or modify our predictions.

The Critter Café is a feast for the imagination! Come tour the “crawlinary” delights next Wednesday. It is Celebrations of Learning (1^st Wednesday, FG Open House). More on this later…