Greetings, GreenMount Community,
I
have good news and I have bad news. The
good news is that there are only 19 days left (including today) until the last
day of school. The bad news is that
there are only 19 days left (including today) until the last day of school.
I guess how you
regard this fact depends on your perspective.
I am definitely on the bad news side.
This is the time of year when we always seem to be rushing to accomplish
all of our goals. Nineteen days until we
teach all the math that our kids need to know before they go to the next
level. Nineteen days to get the eighth
grade art project finished (actually, only eight for Kirsten). And Laurie gets to meet with her music
classes only five times before the Spring Concert on May 28. In every area
teachers are under stress to “get it all done” by June 7.
I didn’t even
mention the theme event NEXT THURSDAY (yikes!).
But, not to worry, we have a good plan for the theme event and you will
be involved as an audience. Our students
have learned a great deal about media and journalism during this theme, and
they are anxious to showcase that learning.
Surprisingly, this theme generated the greatest number of field trips of
any theme to date. I recently heard that
a local public school was touting the fact that they take four field trips a
year. We take that many in a week! You should know that we didn’t just saturate
this theme with field trips to spend the field trip fees. With the help of many
parents, we found some amazing experiences for our students. The Newseum was a big surprise, and our
ongoing trips to WMAR are giving our students a first-hand look at a real news
operation. All of our students were very
engaged at the TV studio, or should I say parts of them? Check out our Facebook page to see how green
GMS shirts work against a green screen.
Another
end-of-year activity is the change from heating to air conditioning. We have been very fortunate that the weather
has been cool as we have not yet been able to have our AC activated because we
are waiting for some new filters. I hope
to have that job completed by the end of the week, when it looks like the
temperatures may start to climb. But,
hasn’t this been a great spring? In
Baltimore, we generally go right from winter into summer. If this is a result of global warming, I’ll
take it.
Finally,
the learning cottage is being readied to be shipped to us and it should arrive
sometime in June. Once here, we will have
a lot of work to do, and there will be good opportunities for earning co-op
hours and soaking up the sun. We will be
building a deck and moving lots of furniture around. We also have some rather large projects
inside the building too, for those of you who prefer working in air
conditioning. Please check with Heather
(coop@greenmountschool.org) to
be part of our ongoing improvements to our space. A belated Happy Mothers’ Day to all of our
moms; we appreciate what you do for all of us and for never quitting your
number one job.
There is nothing in the world of art like the songs mother used to
sing. – Billy Sunday
“Baby’s boat’s a silver star,
sailing far away. Sailing to the land of dreams ‘till the break of day…..” (My
mom’s lullaby)
Cheers,
Steve
