Baker’s Dozen Plus 3

Parents will need to pick up apples on Wednesday at school.  People can make pick-ups from 7:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. in the classroom.  Anyone who would like to help sort apples to fill orders, please join me in the classroom Tuesday after-school.  More hands will make the work lighter.  I thought this might also be a time we could discuss other possibilities for fundraisers for the class.  Please join us for some fun and excitement as we look forward finding ways to support the class’ endeavors.

There is so much going on these days.  Please review the following items.

• We need volunteers to help out on our APPLE TRIP to the Adam’s Apple Orchard.  Please either send me an email at gbaker@waitsfield.k12.vt.us or send in a note letting me know you can help.  If you can, please note that you would need to drive or carpool with another parent.  We will leave at 9:30 allowing us to stop the TBPS’s new playground.  The orchard expects us to arrive at 11:00 at which time we will picnic until 11:30 and then we will begin our tour.  Please, we need help with the apples.
• Chattham is putting together an order form for the children to use this weekend.  If every child got at least 3 orders for apples, we could have our first successful fundraiser.  Please look for the form in your child’s bag either Thursday or Friday evening.
• Kristin and I would like the students to make a market cart to use in a variety of ways in the garden, at open house, and in conjuction with our work using the Ox Cart Man.  Can you help?  Please contact me through email or phone to arrange time for the project. 
• Also, I would like to construct a Sukkah that will be placed in the front of the school.  A sukkah is a booth.  “Sukkot is the Festival of Booths, or Tabernacles.  It is a joyous festival that commemorates the final gathering of the harvest.  At Sukkot a temporary hut (or booth) is built.  In it a family eats, drinks, and sleeps during the holiday, and is reminded of how the Israelites lived in the wilderness.  The hut may have three sides or four, with walls of bamboo poles or canvas, and a loose roof of tree branches of evergreens or palms.  The covering of branches should be heavy enough for there to be shade during the day, but open enough for the stars to be seen at night…In 1620, when the Pilgrims came to America, they held a harvest festival.  They based their first Thanksgiving on the ancient holiday of Sukkot.”  I thought we could use the booth from last year’s May Day celebration.  We need help with this too.  I made one of these a number of years ago with another group and it is great fun and very powerful.  We will need a lot of cornstalks and evergreen branches to make the walls.  Please call or write to let me know if you are able to bring cornstalks and/or branches to us.  We will also be using the corn leaves and silk etc. to make cornhusk dolls.  Our first of many to be made this year.

Oh my goodness, I am having the worse time keeping my blog password.  The Edublog people are working on this problem, but it makes life very difficult when I am trying to get to you on a regular basis.  Enough of my rant…because the blog is “up & running again” thank goodness.

I was talking to Bear after school today and was excitedly sharing with her the joys of teaching your children.  Truly the best part of teaching is watching children get involved, making connections to the curriculum being presented.  Today Grace found a song in a Disney book written about Johnny Appleseed and shared it at rug time.  Sophie found Steven Kellogg’s version of Johnny Appleseed’s life’s story and checked it out for us.  Izzy exclaimed that she has a copy of the Ox Cart Man at home while we were reading it for the first time last week.  I could go on with examples like this, but suffice to say, YEAH…FANTASTIC…KEEP IT COMING!!